A Sound Like Breaking Glass
by mongoose-bite
Summary: Eren lives by the ocean in a peaceful, untroubled world with his classmates. He studies, dreams of going to sea on the boats to see what lies beyond the horizon, and sneaks out at night more often than he should. His greatest ambition is to join the crew of the Wings of Freedom, but after making a disastrous first impression on Captain Levi, it will be easier said than done. Ereri.
1. Chapter 1

The chalk hit Eren right between his eyes and he flinched as it bounced off his forehead and landed on the open book in front of him.

He looked around wildly, and realised most of the class was staring at him save for Mikasa, who sat directly in front of him and was keeping her eyes forward. Armin was looking worried, and was presumably mouthing an answer, but Eren could read lips about as well as he could stay awake in class on balmy afternoons and had no idea what he was trying to say. Jean was smirking at him, which was never a good sign, and everyone else just looked vaguely relieved that Shadis was picking on someone else.

"It's good to have you back with us, Mister Jaeger," Shadis said heavily. "Could we trouble you for an answer to the question?"

"Uh."

Fine, he'd been caught staring out the window and daydreaming again. Dragging it out like this was just unfair. He stood up and took a deep breath.

"Could you repeat the question please, Sir?"

"For you, Eren, perhaps a third time will be a charm." He was so sarcastic. He was everyone's least-favourite teacher for reason, and he never missed with the chalk. "From what portion of the flax plant to we derive the flax fibers used in making fabric and rope?"

Eren was sure they were supposed to be doing geography today. How did they get onto flax? He lowered his eyes to surreptitiously scan the notebook in front of him, but other than some half-hearted notes from the beginning of the lesson regarding astronomy (seriously, how did they get from there to flax?) and some sketches of sailing ships, there was nothing to help him. The blackboard was equally unedifying.

"Ah." He could guess. There were only so many parts to a plant. The roots didn't sound right. Flowers? Leaves?

"Artlet! Stop helping him."

Eren felt bad as Armin flinched, chalk bouncing off his head as he stilled the strange hand movements he was making. Eren didn't understand them anyway.

"Quiet at the back." He hoped Jean would cop some chalk for sniggering but no such luck.

Mikasa probably knew the answer, but she couldn't and wouldn't help. He was on his own.

"The flowers?" Eren hazarded a guess.

Shadis sighed, and his shoes clumped on the worn wooden floorboards as he made his way between the rows of desks. He held out his hand and Eren meekly dropped the piece of chalk into it.

"Completely and utterly wrong, Jaeger." Eren sat down again and Shadis slapped him over the back of the head with the sheaf of notes he held in his other hand, messing his hair. Eren looked appropriately contrite as Shadis walked on. "Anyone else? Not you, Artlet."

Armin put his hand back down. Eren met his eyes and grinned to let him know he hadn't been terribly traumatised by his experience.

Marco knew the answer, and Eren dutifully wrote down that flax was obtained from the skin of the stem, or bast, of the flax plant. So that's what Armin had been trying to mime. There was no way he'd ever need to know this crap, Eren thought. Shadis's voice was soon rolling peacefully over him again, and Eren's gaze drifted once more towards the window.

Outside, the afternoon sun was shining down on the cobbled rooftops of Shiganshina, and beyond that the sparkling blue of the bay. The schoolhouse overlooked the town, and a gentle sea breeze brought relief to the students sweltering through the last lesson of the afternoon. As the end of the lesson approached the class grew restive, shuffling their feet and scrawling down the night's homework, pens tapping impatiently against books, non-essential items surreptitiously put away ahead of time.

After what seemed like an age, Shadis closed his books, collected his notes, and told them they were dismissed, and noise welled up from the class like water bubbling out of a spring. Eren sighed and slumped back in his chair.

"Finally."

"I'm so hungry!" Sasha declared, throwing her arms up in the air. Chairs were pushed back, and bags were hastily packed.

"You were daydreaming again," Mikasa said, turning around in her chair to look at Eren.

Eren grinned, "Can you blame me? Just look at the weather out there."

"Beach! Beach!" Connie bounced past, his schoolbag on his back, one of the straps flapping loose. "C'mon guys. The tide will be out."

"Yeah!" Eren said, sweeping the items on his desk carelessly into his bag. "Right behind you."

"What about foooood?" Sasha asked.

"You can stuff your face on the way," Connie said. "I want to check the crab pot."

"Like you're ever going to catch anything," Jean said. "Something must be wrong with your bait."

Mikasa nodded and packed up her things without comment. She always went wherever Eren did, and rarely argued about how they should spend their time.

"Eren," Armin said with a serious look. "You won't forget to do your homework again, will you? Shadis is going to give us both detention if he finds you copying mine again."

"I'll do it, I've got all evening. Reiner, are you coming with us?"

"Bertolt needs to go to the library first."

Right.

They clattered out of the classroom and onto the cobbled streets outside. Eren could feel the heat coming off the ground through his shoes. For another day, they were free. They chattered and bumped against each other and paused halfway down the slope to buy sweet bread from a little bakery and stick their heads under the public pump and drink straight from the spout.

The ocean awaited them. The tide was out, and the deep channel into the bay that the ships used was bordered by shallow water and sandbars. They left their bags on the dock and took off their shoes and socks before dropping down to the sand. Eren paused, like he did every day, to stare at the ships tied up by the pier. Mostly they were small fishing vessels, but there was usually one or two of the tall ships that took exploration teams and trade goods (yes, flax, probably) to distant and strange lands. It was these stately galleons that made his heart beat faster, and their shapes filled the margins of his notebooks. They were so beautiful, they looked like they could fly.

"Oi! Eren! You just stay there and look after our bags if you're scared of getting you feet wet," Jean called.

Eren scowled and launched himself off the dock, landing in the loose warm sand with a thump.

"Like hell!" He hurried to catch up, and tried unsuccessfully to kick sand in Jean's direction.

They hopped across the hot sand to the water, which was still and calm here. He could hear the breakers crashing bit further along where the beach wasn't so protected by the curve of the bay and the breakwater. Connie was in front, eagerly searching for his crab pot, while the others trailed along behind, warm sunlit water lapping at their knees.

They had until the sun went down to look for pipis and explore the rock pools, or fling themselves down on the sand and talk. Ymir stripped off to her underwear as usual and went swimming, as always trying to get Krista to join her without much success. Connie didn't catch anything in his crab trap and he threw it back into the water with a scowl. Marco tossed the last scrap of his bread to the seagulls and Sasha wailed at him that she would have eaten it. Reiner and Bertolt joined them eventually and knowledgeably discussed the what tomorrow's fishing catch was likely to be like. Jean made a half-hearted sandcastle and Eren kicked it in, and they both knew it was just an excuse for a scuffle that everyone else ignored entirely. Armin sorted through the seashells and driftwood that collected at the hide tide mark for anything interesting that might have washed up, and Mikasa stared out to sea with a faint smile on her face, her toes scrunching down into the sand.

The tide was coming in when they made their way back to the docks, brushed the sand off their feet, and bid each other goodnight. Eren stuffed his shoes and socks into his bag, and started walking home with Mikasa.

They were winding their way through the fish markets, deserted and quiet at this time of day, when Eren stopped and glanced back at the bay.

"Look!"

He pointed out beyond the breakwater, where a tall ship was making its way into harbour, the lantern hanging from the prow gleaming like the first star of evening. There was just enough light for her to make it safely inside and drop anchor before it got too dark.

"We should head home," Mikasa said.

"Mm." But Eren didn't move, his eyes glued to the vessel. Years of watching them come and go every spare minute meant he could identify most of the regular ships by sight. He wouldn't leave until he knew who it was coming into harbour because he felt he knew which ship this was.

Mikasa sighed, but stayed by his side as he squinted out at the harbour.

"It's the _Wings of Freedom_," he declared eventually. "It has to be. Look, the masts-" he instinctively stepped forward, and Mikasa caught his hand.

"Eren, we can't stay here and wait. It'll be dark."

He knew that of course. The _Freedom_ was only just coming into harbour. It would be at least an hour before any of her crew set foot on dry land. So he let Mikasa gently pull him away from the harbour.

"It's late," he said, realising that the stars were starting to come out, and the sun had disappeared from the top of the clock-tower.

"I tried to tell you."

They ran, their schoolbags bouncing on their backs, as they scurried up narrow, winding streets, past inns starting to open for the night trade, shuttered shops and over cold, slow-moving canals spanned by solid wooden bridges. The night air tugged at Eren's hair and he grinned widely; the _Freedom_ was here!

It was only the ship that haunted his dreams. Ever since he'd been small, he remembered watching the green flag with the two wings flutter in the breeze, bringing with it news of exotic places, strange spices, and always a sense that adventure lay just over the horizon. The _Freedom_ didn't carry flax or timber, she carried explorers and surveyors. Eren was determined to one day tread her decks, and look over the horizon for himself. Armin's tales of distant lands had only spurred him further, and he ached to be older. He watched the broadening of his shoulders and the deepening of his own voice with barely-contained impatience; this time, maybe, he'd be old enough to join the crew.

He had to try; he promised himself the last time he'd watched the _Freedom_ leave harbour that he would. Even if he had to wait another year or two, he'd make sure they'd remember his name for next time and impress them with his dedication and determination so when they were next looking for crew, they'd consider him.

Them.

Captain Levi.

Eren had never spoken to him, but he'd seen him a handful of time over the years. Each new sighting made him look shorter as Eren grew taller, but never less awe-inspiring. Erwin Smith owned the _Freedom_, but Eren knew it was Levi he'd have to convince. Levi had a reputation as one of the most talented and boldest captains on the waves, and even taking into account the sailors' love for a good yarn, the grains of truth in the stories had to be impressive in their own right.

He ran faster, as if by increasing his speed he could bring himself closer to that time where he might take to the sea himself. His hair flopped in front of his eyes and his breath rasped in his throat. Mikasa said nothing, keeping pace without effort, her shoes tapping on the cobblestones and her skirt swishing around her knees. They scurried up flights of stone steps, shouting apologies over their shoulders as they pushed past old women and young sailors and dockworkers returning home.

Finally, Dr Jaeger's house came into view, with the familiar thatched roof and slightly overgrown garden. The lights were on inside, and a curl of smoke drifted from the chimney.

"I'm going to speak to him this time you know," he said, when they finally halted, sweaty and out of breath, outside their house. Eren's mother had lit a lantern near the front gate, which meant his father wasn't home yet. They'd made it in time to avoid a scolding.

"Who?" Mikasa asked.

"Captain Levi, of course. I'm going apply for a position on board the _Freedom._"

Mikasa frowned at him. "Eren, you haven't finished school. You can't just run away to sea."

"Every year I spend at school is a year spent learning useless things, as opposed to useful ones. What's the point in waiting?" he retorted. "This has always been my plan, you know that."

Mikasa looked like she was going to keep arguing, but his mother opened the front door and interrupted them.

"I thought I heard you," she said. "How was school?"

"Boring," Eren said. It was what he said every day, and Carla stood aside and smiled as they went inside. "What's for dinner?" he asked, inhaling the smoke and cooking smells of his home. "I'm starving."

Upon learning that the fish pie wouldn't be ready for a while yet, Eren went up to his room and flung open the window. He could hear Mikasa and his mother talking as they laid the table below and the tolling of bells out at sea. He would miss the former, he knew, but the pull of the latter was something he was powerless to deny.

With a reluctant sigh, he lit a lamp and slumped down in front of his desk to get his homework started. A few moths flew in his open window, drawn by the lantern, and he brushed them irritably off the page as he worked.

Sometime later he heard his father return.

"Welcome back!" he called as he heard his father's footsteps past his open doorway. Being a doctor Grisha sometimes kept odd hours, but it looked like they'd all be here for dinner tonight. At Carla's call of 'Dinner's ready!' they gathered around the slightly scarred kitchen table.

Grisha talked quietly about his day at work as they passed a bowls of peas and carrots around the table. The lanterns flickered occasionally when the breeze strengthened. Eren and Mikasa split the last slice of pie.

"I saw the _Freedom_ arrive today," Eren said eventually, unable to contain himself much longer.

"Yes," his father said. "I heard she was expected back soon."

Mikasa frowned, and Eren realised too late what she was going to say when she spoke.

"Eren wants to sign up to join the _Freedom's _crew," she said.

"Mikasa!" Eren rose out of his chair. "That was a secret!"

"Eren!" That was his mother. He met her eyes with a guilty look; he couldn't hide the truth from her now that Mikasa had gone and blabbed it. "You're not serious, are you?"

Mikasa just looked down at her plate.

"Well, yes, what's wrong with it?" he declared defensively.

"You're fifteen!"

"Nearly sixteen!"

"The _Freedom_ isn't some fishing barge- you'll be gone for months, perhaps years, and it's dangerous in the open ocean."

Raised voices were rare in Eren's house, and he didn't like them, but he answered back, angrily. "It's worth it! I don't want to spend my life just sitting in school wasting time!"

"You need school-"

"Eren." His father spoke.

"Yes, you talk some sense into him," Carla said, starting to collect the plates. Mikasa helped her silently, not meeting Eren's eyes. Oh, they were going to talk about this later, he was sure.

"Why do you want to go to sea?" Grisha asked.

Why did he want to go to sea? It wasn't even a question; it was an overwhelming drive, it was what he dreamt about, daydreamed, planned. There had never been any other options in his mind. He had to see what was over the horizon, and desire was so intense it made his chest ache. How could he possibly put that into words?

He looked at his father, but Grisha was leaning back in his chair, his fingers laced together patiently, letting Eren work out what he wanted to say, as wise and knowing as ever. Trusting that Eren would have his reasons.

"I want to know what's over the horizon," he said. "To find out what's beyond the ocean, to learn about the world, isn't that what humans are for? It's not enough to just live peacefully-" The ache in his chest intensified. It was as if he'd already left, that he was looking back nostalgically on his own childhood from beyond the ocean.

"It's not that I'm unhappy here," he said, sparing his mother a glance. He never wanted her to think he was running away, he was running _to_. "I have to go forward. But I'll come back, I promise."

Carla shook her head.

Grisha sighed, "The spirit of human inquiry can't just be talked away. But Eren, don't make too many promises, and there's no need to hurry, either."

That was the end of the discussion for now. His mother was clearly against it still, and he hung his head guiltily as he started filling the sink to wash up. Mikasa must have felt guilty too, because she picked up a cloth to help him dry up.

"Shouldn't you be doing homework?" Eren asked her, still feeling resentful.

"I'm sorry, Eren," she said. "I had to tell her. It's not fair to take those sorts of decisions without telling your family."

They worked in silence for a while, crockery clinking. Grisha had settled down with a book and Carla had gone upstairs.

"Father didn't say no, at least," Eren said.

"Probably because he knows he couldn't stop you unless he locked you in the basement."

Eren glanced at her, "I can't tell if you're joking or not."

They finished their chores and went upstairs. Eren worked desultorily on his homework for a while. He couldn't quite see the harbour from his bedroom window; a clock tower was between him and the _Freedom_ but he cast wistful glances in its direction anyway.

He knew it was too late to receive permission to go and visit Armin so with the majority of his work completed he made a show of having a bath and going to bed. Mikasa was still working when he bid her goodnight.

"Eren." Her pencil stopped moving across the page and she looked up at him.

"Yeah?"

"I'll come with you, if you go to sea." The lamplight reflected off her eyes, her face a picture of calm resolve.

"You think they'll let you join?" he asked.

She just gave him a knowing look and he laughed. If they hired him, they'd definitely hire her, and they both knew it.

"Yes, I'd like that," he said. He smiled. He was glad he wouldn't have to leave her behind. "Thank you."

"I'll protect you," she said. "From whatever's out there."

"Goodnight, Mikasa."

"Goodnight, Eren."

He flopped back on his bed, and Carla came in to kiss him goodnight like she had when he was small.

The room was dark, but he could tell her expression was a sad one, as she stroked his hair.

"I love you, Eren," she said. "How'd you grow up without me noticing?"

"I love you too, Mother."

"Just remember, you're not an adult yet. Listen to your mother a little, hm?"

He swallowed, and for a few moments after she'd gone, he almost thought about changing his mind. It wouldn't be easy to leave his parents, but he'd known that all along. He lay back with his hands behind his head, waiting until he judged it safe to sneak out.

The house grew quiet. The light coming under his door dimmed. Quietly he threw back the sheet and pulled on a shirt. He tucked his sandshoes into the waistband of his shorts and flung a leg over his windowsill. He'd done this so many times before, and it only got easier as he got taller.

He lowered himself down by his arms. When he'd been younger he'd had to risk climbing on the tomato trellis to get down, but now he could drop down lightly into the garden without leaving suspiciously damaged plants in his wake. He tiptoed away from the house, and out the front gate before putting his shoes on.

The residential part of town was quiet at this time of night. He could hear shouting and laughter coming up from the inns closer to the docks, but that wasn't his destination. He hurried over to Armin's house, a familiar journey even in the dark.

There was a light still burning in Armin's grandfather's room, but Eren knew he'd have to make some serious noise before the old man noticed anything. He'd only been caught once when he'd trodden on a rake left in the garden and nearly knocked himself out with the handle. Even then, all he'd done was patch Eren up and make him a drink before sending him home without telling his parents.

Armin's window was open, and his light was on. Eren took his shoes off again, and dug his fingers and toes into the brickwork as he scaled the side of the building.

"Armin!" he hissed. "Armin! Stop studying!" He was hooking his hands over the edge of the windowsill when Armin's face appeared and he extended a hand to help him inside. Armin was never surprised to see him like this.

Armin's room was full of books, and Eren sat on his bed while Armin went back to his desk; there was nowhere else to sit.

"You're not here to copy my homework, are you?" Armin asked.

"No of course not. I have news; the _Freedom_ is here!" His smile faded, "And Mikasa told my parents about our plan. Mother's not happy, and I don't really know what Father thinks."

"Our plan?" Armin looked at him with wide, worried eyes. "You want to sign up _now_?"

"The _Freedom_ could be gone for more than a year next time she leaves. I'm just saying, we should give it a try. Mikasa says she'll come too. So you're in as well, right?" Armin had to come too; it was his dream as well.

That mollified Armin somewhat, but he still looked concerned, chewing unhappily on his lip and frowning.

"It's kind of short notice," he said. "Are you sure you saw the _Freedom_? It wasn't something else?"

"Positive."

"They might not hire us, you know. We don't have any experience."

"We have to try, don't we? Then we can do better the next time; we'll know what experience to get."

"That does make some sort of sense."

"So, let's meet up after school and see if we can get to talk to Captain Levi."

"All right, Eren, I'm in, just like we always planned."

Eren grinned. That was why Armin was his best friend. He knew he would always be right there with him, no matter what, even if he looked like he was going to have trouble getting to sleep now.

"I should head back," Eren said. "I'll see you at school tomorrow, okay?"

"What about your parents?"

"I dunno," Eren frowned. "They can't stop me. Unless they lock me in the basement, Mikasa said."

"She might give them ideas," Armin said with that strange look he got when he made one of his rare jokes.

"Ah! You'll jinx it. Okay, I'm going now."

"You could probably use the door now if you wanted, I don't think Grandfather minds," Armin said, as Eren started climbing out the window again.

"It's tradition," he said as he dropped down.

He'd hoped talking to Armin would calm him down enough that he could go to sleep, but somehow it had only fired him up more. He found himself walking the quiet streets with quick, impatient steps. First he told himself that he just wanted to see the harbour, but he could barely make out the _Freedom_ lolling offshore from his vantage point up near the post office.

So he headed down towards the docks. It wasn't really unsafe here, even for a fifteen-year-old. The people most likely to cause him trouble, other boys, would be in bed and he was confident he could outrun anything worse if he had to. He hurried past knots of loud young men and women, some of them staggering drunk. He didn't care about any of them; he just wanted to look out over the harbour.

"Eren!" He pulled up sharply as he recognised Hannes and his friends, sitting around a small table outside a cafe, the table littered with bottles and playing cards. His face was flushed, but he'd recognised Eren instantly as he'd darted past. "What are you doing here so late?"

"Uh." Crap. "I'm running an errand for Doctor Jaeger," he said, struck by a sudden bolt of inspiration.

"Well get going, don't just stand there, boy."

Eren took off again. No one questioned that a doctor might need something in a hurry in the middle of the night. Feeling very pleased with himself, and bolder now that he had a satisfactory cover story, Eren sped up and stopped avoiding the lighted places. He may as well take a look at the side of Shiganshina that he rarely saw. These were real sailors, loitering and laughing and drinking and flirting. Someday he'd be one of them, with his own stories about far-off places and adventure on the ocean.

Technically, he'd start making his dreams a reality tomorrow, but it felt like the adventure was starting now. He wanted to see it, the ocean; he could smell it, even through the cooking and wood-smoke and wine. He felt like his heart was going to burst.

He rounded the corner of an inn and started trying to slow himself down as he realised the door was open and he was going to crash into someone. Only he didn't crash. That person wasn't there any more; they just sort of flowed out of his way. He felt strong, cool fingers wrap around his wrist briefly and then he was airborne, his momentum carrying him what felt like halfway down the street.

"Captain!" he heard a woman say in alarm.

And then he hit the ground with a crunch, his breath knocked out of him, banging his knee and his forearms as he landed on damp cobblestones that smelled of old fish, salt and beer.

"Ugh. Ow." He'd been brought back down to earth, figuratively and literally, and he realised he might have made a mistake coming down here. He half expected a boot to the ribs.

"It's just a kid," someone said. "I thought you were being attacked."

"Are you all right?" He blinked as he saw a hand extended towards him. It belonged to a young woman with shoulder-length ginger hair and kind eyes. She was dressed in a neat sailor's uniform with a green cloak.

"Yes, I think. Thank you." He accepted the offered hand and she helped him to his feet. He was going to need another bath, he realised, but none of his bangs and scrapes looked too serious. He'd have bruises tomorrow.

He was the centre of attention in a circle of people, most of whom were dressed similarly to the woman who helped him. He noticed, unlike most of the other sailors, they were all armed, swords on hips, pistols in belts. They regarded him, for the most part, with amusement and he realised his life wasn't in danger. Not from them, anyway.

The only real source of immediate danger looked to be the very person he'd almost run into, and who had sent him flying with a flick of his wrist. Eren's heart sank as his gaze rose, up over immaculate boots, a dark grey bridge coat unbuttoned at the front as a concession to the warm evening, the polished wooden handles of two holstered pistols, neatly buttoned shirt and immaculate cravat, to meet the cold grey eyes of Captain Levi.

Eren slammed his fist against his own chest in a hasty salute and bowed at the same time. "My apologies Captain Levi, Sir! I wasn't looking where I was going."

A tall blonde man with a short ponytail chuckled at him, but Eren didn't take his eyes off Levi, whose expression of irritated disgust hadn't changed.

The woman laughed, "Captain Levi, you've got a fan."

"What sort of moron runs blindly through the docks in the middle of the night?" He gave a barely perceptible shrug and turned away. The others followed, casting amused or sympathetic looks over their shoulders.

"Be careful," the woman said.

Levi stalked ahead of his crew as they talked quietly among themselves, heading down to the docks. Eren just stood there; he wanted desperately to say something, but he didn't know what and his tongue refused to move anyway. It felt like it was stuck to the roof of his mouth. So much for a good first impression.


	2. Chapter 2

For once Eren snuck in through his front door so he could wash the mud and dirt off his knees and elbows in the kitchen sink. He felt like a first-class idiot, and he was sure Captain Levi thought he was as well. He'd have to try and make a better impression tomorrow and he dragged himself upstairs to bed for real this time.

He didn't sleep well. He kept going over his encounter with the crew of the _Freedom_ and felt so embarrassed by it he actually put his head under his pillow, as if he could hide from the memory. Way not to look like a stupid kid.

Eventually he got tired enough of beating himself up over it that he managed to get some sleep. He wasn't in a good mood when Mikasa knocked on his door to wake him up the next morning.

"All right, I'm awake!" he called, the pillow falling off his head and onto the floor. He sighed and rolled out of bed. He ran a comb through his hair blearily and threw on some clothes. Breakfast was fried eggs and toast, and he forgot to put salt on it and didn't even notice until he'd eaten most of it.

Grisha had left early, like he usually did, but Carla waved them off at the door. Mist had settled over Shiganshina although the sun would burn it all away within the hour. The sound of the bells on the harbour sounded muffled and the narrow winding streets seemed full of quiet mysteries.

Eren and Mikasa walked to school. Eren couldn't pretend to be enthusiastic, and Mikasa would see through him if he tried.

"What's wrong, Eren?" she asked eventually. The paused as Thomas rushed past them, even though they weren't late.

"Nothing," Eren said. "I just couldn't sleep, that's all."

"I see."

Armin wasn't so easily put off. He met them when their paths converged and bid them good morning. He was always there earlier than Eren and Mikasa, but he never went on ahead. When they'd all been smaller, Armin had been bullied so much that he still hadn't broken the habit of waiting for his friends to walk to school with. If he wasn't standing at his usual corner, he was home sick.

"So you're really coming with us?" he asked Mikasa.

Mikasa didn't look surprised that Armin already knew. "Mm." She nodded firmly.

"But I still don't think they'll necessarily hire us," Armin said.

Eren knew at this point he was supposed to jump in and be reassuring, but he wasn't so certain himself any more, and he didn't say anything other than, "We'll just have to see."

"Ah, good morning Mikasa," Jean wasn't exactly waiting for them, but he wasn't not waiting for them either. Well, waiting for Mikasa at least.

"Hello, Jean," she said, not breaking her stride.

"Just what I didn't want to see first thing in the morning," Eren said, yawning rudely in Jean's direction. "Your stupid face." That made him feel a bit better. It still didn't stop Armin from pulling him aside as they entered the school gates.

"What's wrong, Eren?" he asked.

"Later," he hissed.

Later turned out to be when they were warming up for physical education. While Armin and Eren stretched together Eren explained what had happened the night before.

"You went down to the docks? Why?"

"I know it was stupid! It's too late now."

"It's not really your fault though," Armin said, as they began a lap of the oval. "You didn't mean to walk into him, and he threw you down the street. If anything, he should be apologising to you for overreacting. What if he'd hurt you?"

"I am not going to ask Captain Levi to apologise."

"I'm not saying you should, but you shouldn't feel bad for something that's more his fault than yours."

"Artlet! Jaeger! You're meant to be running, not gossiping like a couple of fishwives. Pick up the pace or you'll get extra!"

They ran on.

That afternoon didn't drag as much as it usually did, and for once Eren watched the sun drop down towards the horizon and the changing angles of the light slanting across his desk with trepidation rather than anticipation. He almost missed it when they were dismissed.

"Today, definitely I'm going to catch crabs!" Connie declared. "Hey, what's so funny? What'd I say? C'mon, tell me. You guys are arseholes!" Eren didn't laugh. He felt like he was watching everything from the other side of a glass window.

"Shall we go?" Mikasa asked quietly, watching the afternoon delight with her usual reserve.

"Yeah."

"Hey, are you guys coming to the beach?" Sasha asked, as Eren, Armin and Mikasa prepared to leave.

"Uh, maybe later," Eren said. "Got stuff to do."

He kind of wished he was going to the beach. The class split into two groups outside the school, the others heading straight for the water. Eren paused by the post office to stare out over the harbour, like he always did.

"Oh crap!" His eyes widened.

"What?" Armin paused.

"The _Freedom_. I don't see it. It's not where it was anchored last night. They can't possibly have left!" He started running down towards the docks, through the centre of town. There'd been no time, it would take at least a day to load new supplies, they couldn't just leave again. Dammit! He should have said something that night.

They skidded to a halt at the edge of the fish markets, and Eren scanned the masts of the ships tied up at the pier. The _Freedom_ was not among them.

"No, this can't be right."

"Eren," Mikasa said.

"What?" he snapped.

She merely pointed. "There's Erwin Smith. Maybe we should ask him where the _Freedom_ is."

Mister Smith was one of the important people in Shiganshina. He owned ships and shops and was a member of the town council, although he never threw his weight around like some of the other local politicians. He wore a neat suit and carried a cane as he wandered around the streets, surveying a town that was, at least in some sense, his. Fishmongers and dockworkers nodded politely as he strolled past.

"Right," Eren said. He ran his hands over his hair, trying to make it a bit neater, squared his shoulders, and approached Erwin, his back straight and his head held high. Erwin saw them approaching with purpose and broke his stride to wait for them to catch him up. "Good afternoon, Mister Smith," Eren said, with the most concentrated politeness he could manage.

"Hello," Erwin said. "You're Doctor Jaeger's boy, aren't you?"

"Uh, yes Sir. I'm Eren Jaeger. I saw the _Wings of Freedom_ arrive yesterday, but I don't see her now. Has she left already?"

"Oh no, she's in drydock." Erwin seemed rather charmed that they cared so much. "As much as Captain Levi would like to cut his visits short, she needed some maintenance."

"Oh." Eren's shoulders dropped with relief. If the _Freedom_ was in drydock she'd be there for at least a couple of weeks. "Thank you, Mister Smith."

"Are you going to look over the _Freedom_ now?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Well, would you pass on a message to Captain Levi or one of the officers for me? Tell him I'll see him after eight. Late meeting of the town council."

"Yes, Sir!"

Erwin smiled at him, apparently amused. The three of them bowed politely and they hurried off.

"This is great," Eren said, as they would their way past huge coils of rope, fishermen working on repairing their nets, and the fishmongers hawking their wares. Seagulls cawed above them and the dockside cats watched them go past with wary indolence. "Now we've got a good reason to speak to Captain Levi." Maybe passing on a message from Erwin would help redeem him.

They were going in the opposite direction to where their friends were relaxing on the beach, towards the deeper part of the bay, where the shipyards were. They passed workshops alive with activity, as shipwrights scrambled over the bones of ships, sawing and sanding and tarring wood.

Great piles of timber lay in in warehouses. Along the wharf ships were tethered for repairs. Eren spotted the tall masts of the _Freedom_ almost instantly. There were only a couple of drydocks, great floodable trenches designed for a ship to be floated in and the waiter drained from around her to allow access to the hull for repairs.

On dry land, the _Freedom_ looked heavy and ungainly. She sat uncomfortably on hard ground, caged by the walls of the drydock on either side, her masts still, her sails removed. She looked lost.

Regarding her from the edge of the drydock were two people. Captain Levi and a tall sailor with glasses and a ponytail. The latter was leaning on the railing, pointing at something below the usual waterline on the _Freedom_. Neither of them were armed as there wasn't any danger in Shiganshina after all. Last night they must have been fresh off the boat.

"...Might need to be replaced," they said.

"How long's that going to take." Levi didn't phrase it like a question. He sounded like he was in no better mood than he had been last night. Eren remembered what Erwin had said, that Levi was in a hurry to leave already. They'd only arrived yesterday; what was wrong with Shiganshina that Levi wanted to leave so quickly?

"Excuse me, Captain Levi," Eren said loudly, so it wouldn't look like he'd been eavesdropping. He held out some faint hope that Levi wouldn't recognise him, but it was dashed almost instantly. The captain's eyes narrowed and his mouth took on a disapproving cast. Beside him, the other sailor smiled widely and encouragingly; they were wearing a bridge coat as well, clearly an officer of some sort. "Mister Smith asked me to pass on the message that he'll see you after eight and that he has a meeting of the town council to attend. Sir."

"Ah." Levi turned away to look back at the _Freedom._

"Thank you," his companion said, since he clearly wasn't going to respond further.

Eren took a deep breath, "There's something else, Captain Levi."

Levi turned his head slightly and raised his eyebrows to let them know he was listening, but he was still looking at his ship.

"We, that is, Mikasa Ackerman, Armin Artlet and I, Eren Jaeger, want to apply to join the crew of the _Freedom,_ Sir!" He heard their feet moving against the stonework as Armin and Mikasa stood to attention behind him.

The other officer raised their eyebrows in delight, grinning widely. Levi didn't move.

Eren held his breath.

"Come on, Captain," the officer said. "Look how keen they are. It's heart warming!"

Thank you, thank you, Eren thought. Persuade him, please.

Levi turned to face them. Eren met his appraising stare, trying to persuade him by sheer force of his gaze. Levi barely blinked and Eren wondered if his eyes would start watering if he didn't look away. Up close and in daylight, Levi was mesmerising.

Those eyes had seen beyond the horizon, and Eren felt if he looked into them long enough, he'd see beyond the horizon too.

"I don't have any use for shitty brats on my ship," Levi said flatly. He looked away, disinterested, and the spell was broken.

"Wha-what?" That was it? The officer shot Eren a sympathetic look but they clearly weren't going to argue with their captain. Levi himself had started walking away, again. Eren didn't wait for his brain to engage, he acted. He reached out and grabbed the sleeve of Levi's coat. "Hey, wait!" He pulled up short as Levi turned and looked at him and he realised what he'd done.

Eren snatched his hand back like he'd been burned.

Whatever you say next, Levi's expression warned, it better be very good. Eren wished he'd left this to Armin; he'd know what to say. But he got the feeling if he looked away, Levi would keep walking and he wouldn't stop for him again.

"We are not making this application on a whim, Sir. It has been our dream to sail aboard the _Freedom_ for many years." Well, his and Armin's anyway. Mikasa had never objected at least. "Give us a chance to prove ourselves. The _Freedom_ won't be able to leave for weeks, right? We'll do whatever it takes to prove we'll be useful members of your crew, Sir."

Eren stood with his hands bunched into fists at his sides, his head inclined forward.

"Please, Sir!"

The officer lounged against the railing, watching both Levi and Eren with an amused expression.

"Why do you want to sail on the _Freedom_?" Levi asked quietly.

"I want to see what's beyond the horizon, Sir. I want to explore this world. I know it's dangerous, but I can't just live peacefully! I have to know what's out there. I have to see if the stories are true. I can bring back the truth to everyone who's waiting for me at home. I will join your crew no matter what it takes!"

"Hm. Not bad." Levi seemed to be thinking. "All right, Eren," his gaze flicked to the others, "And friends. The _Freedom_ is in drydock to see some weakened sections of her hull replaced, but she also needs to be cleaned, keel to rigging. The barnacles need to be scraped off the bottom and the sooner that disgusting job is done the sooner I can leave."

Eren glanced over the edge of the drydock, looking at the sea life stuck fast to the _Freedom_.

"Right, Sir." He stared at Levi.

Levi sighed, "I can see you haven't had a lot of practice using your brain. Get down there and start scraping. First Mate Hange here can keep an eye on your dedication to the task."

"Yes, Captain," the three of them chorused.

Captain Levi turned and left without a backward glance, leaving them with Hange.

Hange grinned at them, "Welcome aboard! Let's get you started. Captain Levi is a clean freak, and will want the keel sparkling clean before we take to sea again." The first mate shrugged, "If you don't do a good enough job, he'll send you back to do it again."

"Really?" Eren asked.

"They say you should never meet your heroes," Hange said, leading them into the workshop beyond the drydock. "Disappointing, isn't it?"

"Not really," Eren muttered. "At least it proves he's human."

Hange laughed loudly. "Does it? We'll see."

They introduced themselves, and Hange handed them thin metal scrapers to get the barnacles off, and scrubbing brushes for the slime.

"Start near the prow," Hange said. "We're going to be replacing some of the boards further back, so let's not waste your time cleaning parts that are going to be thrown away. Have fun! Oh, and be careful, they can be razor sharp." And with that Hange drifted away into the workshop to talk to the shipwrights. Apparently they didn't take Levi's order to supervise all that seriously.

Eren, Armin and Mikasa climbed down into the drydock. It was dry only in a relative sense. The _Freedom_ was still losing moisture from her wooden hull as she dried, and there was half an inch of dirty seawater in the bottom of the dock. It smelled terrible; the drying seaweed and dying shellfish combined with the warm day made the atmosphere under the curve of the _Freedom's_ hull suffocating.

As the three of them climbed down the ladder to the bottom of the dock, Eren wondered if he should apologise to his friends for getting into this mess, literally. His sandshoes filled up with water instantly and they squelched over to the ship. She looked enormous from this angle.

"He expects this to be done in a couple of weeks?" Armin asked, gently touching a cluster of barnacles. "It's going to take us a month at least, even if we skipped school to work on it. Although, I suppose they'll have other people working on it, not just us."

"Then let's get a head start," Eren said with determination. Now he had a concrete method of doing so, nothing was going to stop him earning a place on Levi's ship.

It was horrible work. It was hot and stifling, and Eren barked his knuckles dozens of times. Water dripped down the side of the hull, landing in his hair and trickling down the back of his neck. Everything reeked, although after a while he realised he didn't notice the smell any more. Armin started scrubbing off the seaweed at the prow while Eren and Mikasa worked on either side. The barnacles set like cement. The ground underfoot was soon littered with sharp bits of shell. Mikasa worked methodically, a neat square of clear hull in front of her, while Eren attacked the worst bits first, sending chips flying.

"Hello down there!" a familiar voice called. Eren looked up to see the ginger-haired woman from the night before looking down at them, accompanied by the other crew members.

"Hello!" Eren called. He introduced himself and the others and explained what they were doing. Truth be told, he was glad to take thirty seconds off to unkink his fingers and straighten his back.

The woman introduced herself and her companions. Thankfully, she didn't mention what had happened the night before.

"Well, keep up the good work," Eld said.

"Put your backs into it, brats!" Oulo added.

"Oulo, are you trying to sound like Captain Levi?" Petra asked.

"I was hoping they were going to help," Armin said, as the group wandered off again.

Eren went back to work. The sun started to set and the shadows deepened. Eventually Armin said he had to get home before his grandfather started worrying.

"I'll stay a bit longer," Eren said, sweeping the scraper in great arcs over a cleared area, making sure he'd got rid of everything. "I'll see you tomorrow." There was no way he'd have the energy to sneak over and visit Armin that night.

"Don't forget your homework," Armin said as he climbed up out of the drydock.

"Tch." Eren frowned. "If we do a good enough job, we won't have to do homework ever again. Just think, we'll never have to listen to Shadis again either." Of course, there was a good chance Captain Levi would be twice as bad as Shadis ever was.

Mikasa said nothing. She'd cleared more than Eren had, scraping the hull back to bare wood. Gloom gathered in the drydock. From the workshop above, Eren could see the glow of lantern-light.

"We have to go," Mikasa said, collecting her tools. "We're going to get scolded as it is."

Eren stepped back and looked at their work. Despite the hours of hard graft, they'd cleared what looked to Eren like a paltry area. He shook his head.

"I'm going to continue for just a bit longer."

"Eren-"

"Tell Mother I'm studying with Armin. Please. I won't be back too late, I swear. Just another hour or so."

Mikasa frowned. "I'm not going to cover for you if you're going to do this every night."

"Thank you," Eren said fervently.

As her footsteps faded, Eren went back to work in the last of the light. It was hypnotic, in a way. Start with an encrusted stretch of hull, and just scrape away at it until it was smooth. His arms and back ached, and his mind drifted; he didn't need to think, just work. This would take him closer to the horizon.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" Levi's voice jolted him back to reality. He blinked, realising he was practically working by feel. He glanced up and saw a strip of starry sky between the edge of the drydock and the hull of the _Freedom._

Captain Levi was leaning on the railing, and Eren suspected he was glaring, although he was little more than a silhouette.

"Scraping the hull, Captain."

"You're a moron. Get up here."

Eren collected his tools and felt his way over to the ladder. His legs were stiff; he'd walked about three feet in as many hours. When he climbed up out of the drydock, Levi was waiting for him, his arms folded. He wrinkled his nose as Eren emerged, and it was only when Eren got a lungful of fresh air again that he realised how badly he must smell, like he'd been rolling in rotting fish.

"I can't go home like this," he muttered.

"What the fuck were you doing, working in the dark?" Levi demanded. "I'd have thought even the most brainless schoolboy would have realised it was dangerous."

"I didn't realise it was so late, Captain," Eren said, a bit desperately as he looked around the docks. Just how long had he been here? He'd probably missed dinner entirely. "I am in so much trouble. I have to go-"

"Not yet," Levi said sharply. "I don't give a fuck if you're going to get thrashed when you get home. Follow me."

"Yes, Sir." Eren did as he was bid as Levi led him into the workshop. It was deserted, although large blueprints of the _Freedom _were laid out on a work table, the corners weighted down by bits of wood, along with a number of technical drawings and notebooks.

"Sit." Levi turned the lamp up, illuminating the rows of tools hanging off the walls. It smelled of tar and sawdust in here, a clean smell. Eren sat at the workbench, looking over the documents with interest. "Show me your hands."

"What?" Eren looked up at Levi, startled. Levi just looked at him impatiently and Eren extended his battered hands.

"Irresponsible idiot," Levi muttered, and Eren was struck by the odd thought that he might have been talking about _himself_. "You have to be very careful when scraping ships. Cuts can get infected easily."

He took hold of Eren's right hand and held it between his own as he looked it over. He held it firmly, but not unkindly as he examined Eren's knuckles. The last time Eren had felt Levi's fingers it was as he'd thrown him to the ground.

"Hm."

It was simultaneously unnerving and soothing. As Levi looked over his left hand as well, Eren forced himself to relax his hands, letting them lie limp in Levi's fingers. He found himself watching Levi's face, the way the lantern pooled shadows in his eyes.

"I don't see any cuts." Levi raised his eyes to meet Eren's and Eren looked away. "You're lucky. But the scrapes on your knuckles need to be cleaned."

Eren hadn't really expected this. He sat quietly while Levi cleaned his hands with a cloth and some alcohol, and wrapped the grazes in gauze. His movements were economical and certain, like he bandaged up his crew every day of the week.

He didn't bandage up his crew every day of the week, surely.

"Thank you, Captain Levi," Eren said, cradling his bandaged fingers when Levi had finished.

"Don't do that again, understand?"

"Yes, Sir. I just wanted to, uh, impress you..." he trailed off.

"Obviously. Go home, Eren." He looked at him with distaste, "And for fuck's sake have a bath when you do."

Eren did as he was told. He considered going down to the beach to wash the worst of the mess off, but that would only make him later still, and he slunk home, tired and reeking. The salt water in his hair had dried it into a stiff mat, and he took off his damp shoes and walked home barefoot.

The lantern was still burning outside his house when he got home. The front door creaked as he opened it.

"I'm home," he called as quietly as he could. It didn't help.

Mikasa's cover story obviously couldn't explain why Eren was such a mess, and she got scolded as well for lying. Eren still copped the worst of it; It didn't take Carla long to work out where he'd been and what he'd been doing, in general terms, and she looked so disappointed in him he almost wished he was still young enough to get thrashed. It might have made him feel better.

"Levi hasn't hired us," he said a bit desperately. "It's just to see if we're up to scratch."

"So you're not even getting paid?" his mother asked. She shook her head, "Eren, I know this is important to you, but we were worried sick!"

"It won't happen again." He looked down, "I got in trouble with Captain Levi too, for working too late."

Eventually Carla ran out of words, and she probably got a bit tired of Eren stinking up her kitchen as well. She warmed the leftover vegetable soup on the stove while Eren hopped into the bath and scrubbed furiously. So Levi was a clean freak, he thought idly, as he sank into the water up to his nose and let the warmth ease his aching muscles a bit. Eren wasn't sure if Hange had been right; Levi had told him he smelled, but anyone with a functional nose would have said the same, and he hadn't shown any discomfort when he handled his grimy hands. Eren looked at his wrinkled fingertips and gently held one hand in the other.

What the fuck was he doing? He'd just bandaged him up, nothing more complicated than that.

He could smell food and he realised he was starving. He got out of the cooling water and towelled himself off fast before throwing on some clothes and hurrying downstairs. He ate all the leftover soup and half a loaf of brown bread, sitting at the kitchen table by himself.

He dragged himself upstairs to his room and fell face down onto his bed. He was so tired. He should do his homework, he knew, but he also knew that it wasn't going to happen. He barely had the wherewithal to crawl under the covers, let alone study.

He turned out his lamp, and settled down to sleep.

It occurred to him that Levi could have decided he was too stupid or prone to injury to take on as a crew member, and fired him then and there. But he hadn't. He hadn't even really scolded him, other than for potentially hurting himself. Levi wasn't so bad, really. He'd been very gentle when he'd treated his hands.

He hadn't told him not to show up at the shipyard tomorrow, either. Eren smiled to himself and when he fell asleep his left hand was cradled in his right.


	3. Chapter 3

The next morning, Eren bounced out of bed and immediately regretted it. He rolled his shoulders and cracked his back and generally felt like he'd aged about twenty years overnight. He hadn't, of course, and once he'd dressed for school he was able to bound down the stairs two at a time like he usually did.

"You're coming home at a reasonable hour today, aren't you Eren?" Carla asked, putting a plate of toast down in front of him with a stern look.

"Yes, Mother," he said. "I promise." It was an easy promise; he was pretty sure Levi would fire him if he messed up like that again. He slathered butter and honey over his toast and took a couple of apples from the fruit bowl to occupy himself with on the walk to school. Carla waved him and Mikasa off at the gate.

It looked like it was going to be a brilliant day. The morning mist had burned away already, and the harbour sparkled so brightly in the morning sun Eren couldn't stand to look at it. Butterflies danced over the window boxes and cottage gardens, and as they walked to school they could see housewives putting coppers on the boil to do the family washing. It was a perfect day for hanging out at the beach, a less-than-perfect day for sitting in a classroom and, Eren reflected a bit ruefully, a horrible day for scraping the barnacles off a boat.

They met up with Armin as usual.

"So, uh, can I have a look at your homework?" Eren asked.

"You didn't finish it again?" Armin asked, looking a bit annoyed but undoing the straps on his book bag anyway.

"I didn't even start it," Eren confessed. He told Armin what had happened the night before. He'd taken the gauze off his fingers that morning; the scrapes hadn't been deep to start with, and he left out the part where Levi sat him down by lantern-light and tended to his hands. He wasn't sure why. Maybe it was because since he was the target for most of Levi's insults, he wanted to keep his kindnesses to himself as well.

Armin just sighed, "I half expected something like this."

Mikasa went on ahead while Eren crouched down near the school gate to start scrawling Armin's answers into his own notebook. Jean laughed at them as he walked past, which didn't bother Eren half as much as Shadis catching them and giving both him and Armin detention as he'd promised he would if he caught them again.

"You were supposed to be keeping a lookout," Eren said as they trailed miserably into class.

"I was. He came up behind us. This is your fault anyway, Eren."

Mikasa sighed at them when she saw their expressions.

"I can't have detention," Eren said. "I have to go and work at the docks."

"I'll tell them where you are," Mikasa said.

Eren slumped down into his chair and let his head fall on the desk. "That's not really...I mean, thanks." This sucked. He looked longingly out the window.

"All stand."

He dragged himself to his feet.

"Good morning, class."

"Good morning, Mister Verman," he mumbled, joining in the dutiful chorus.

All day he tried to come up with ways to get himself out of detention, from throwing himself on Shadis's non-existent mercy to feigning sick. None of them really struck him as a good idea. He sat with Mikasa under the shade of a spreading tree overlooking the sports ground as they ate lunch in subdued silence.

"Who died?" Reiner asked when he arrived, Bertolt as usual in tow. Somehow Eren's muted demeanour had become contagious, and even Sasha was eating her lunch silently, a joyful expression on her face.

"We have detention," Eren said.

Reiner looked at Armin, "Seriously, you let him copy your work again? Why?"

"Because he asked," Armin said truthfully.

"Because he's an idiot who hangs out with another idiot," Jean offered.

Reiner shook his head.

"You pick on Armin, you pick on me," Eren said, stuffing the last of his sandwich into his face and getting to his feet.

"What, you want more detention?" Jean asked, making no move to defend himself. "Sucker for punishment, aren't you?"

Eren drew breath to respond, and then let it out again. "Forget it." He had more important things to worry about than Jean. He sat back down and started picking at the lawn, watching ants search the ground for stray crumbs.

What would Levi do, he wondered. Not get caught in the first place, probably. Or cut Shadis down to size with a withering stare, both of which were a bit beyond Eren.

He'd suck it up and go to detention; he had no other choice.

That afternoon, he and Armin remained in their seats as the rest of the class packed up to leave.

"I'll see you later," Mikasa said, grabbing her bag and going first.

"Hey, Connie," Ymir said. "You gonna catch crabs today?"

"Shut up!" Connie scowled and folded his arms. "I've given up on the stupid thing."

"I'm sorry," Krista said, even though she'd played no part in the mockery in the first place. "We didn't mean to ruin it for you."

"I... you..." Connie stared at her, turning red. "It's okay! I couldn't catch anything anyway." He got to his feet and practically ran out, the rest of the class following at a slower pace, laughing and talking. Shadis watched them go without expression before turning back to Eren and Armin.

"At least this time I can be certain you're doing your own work this time, Jaeger," he said. He waved his hand. "You can leave when you hand in today's homework. And yesterday's."

Eren bent his head over his desk and got cracking.

Since Armin had done yesterday's work already, he finished long before Eren did. When Eren noticed his friend had stopped writing, he checked to make sure Shadis was occupied with his own work and prodded Armin in the ribs with the end of his pencil. At his startled look, Eren inclined his head.

Just go, already.

Armin nodded. He handed in his work and Shadis let him leave. Armin cast a sympathetic glance over his shoulder and then left. Eren felt a bit relieved; he didn't want Levi to fire Armin either.

Right, so, trigonometry. He sighed and chewed the end of his pencil.

When he finally managed to hand everything in the sun was still on the clock tower, but it was getting late. The day's washing had been taken in, and lights were starting to come on in people's houses. Eren hurried down to the shipyards, a cool afternoon sea breeze funnelling up the narrow streets and ruffling his hair.

When he arrived at the _Freedom, _he could only stand and stare. The graceful ship was a hive of activity. Mikasa and Armin were back at work scraping the barnacles off, and a couple of shipwrights and their assistants were working on removing damaged bits of the hull, but the rest of the crew was there too. They scraped away at the hull and Eren could hear activity from inside the ship as well. Petra and the others were working on cleaning the cannons that lined the _Freedom's _side. They were oiling the runners and scouring out the build up of residue on the inside of the barrels. Hange was supervising the shipwrights, and occasionally exclaiming over some rare form of sea life dislodged from the hull and generally keeping everyone on track.

Levi was there too. Eren let his school bag fall to the ground next to Armin and Mikasa's as he drank in the scene. He didn't notice Levi at first, but once he did he couldn't look away.

The _Freedom_ had a figurehead. It was a carved wooden horse, its neck arched and its front hooves raised in a gallop, eternally leaping over the bow wave. It was a work of art, but the elements had worn away the paint and stained the wood over the years, and Captain Levi had secured himself to the bowspirit of the ship with a length of rope and was sanding back the old paint, his booted feet braced against the side of the hull. He'd taken off his coat and rolled his sleeves up, and his face was a picture of calm concentration.

"Eren!" Armin's shout brought him back to reality. It also brought him a lot of attention, and he smiled, somewhat unnerved as everyone paused to look at him.

"Uh. I apologise for being late!" he called. "I was detained at school."

"We heard," Gunther called.

"Huh, youngsters these days," Oluo said, wiping the sweat off his forehead with a rag. "You'd have to be an utter moron to manage to get detention. Back when I was at schoo- ack!" Eren's eyes widened and he flinched at Oluo bit his tongue. It looked like it was actually bleeding. He staggered away from the others, making choked sounds.

"He does that all the time," Eld said, when he noticed Eren's mildly horrified expression. "Doesn't stop him talking any though. Or thinking before he opens his mouth."

Oluo glared at him, pressing a handkerchief to his mouth.

Eren made his way towards the ladder down into the drydock.

"Ah, Eren," Hange called. "We're going to pack it in soon, so you don't have to work today."

"No, I want to," he said, sliding down the ladder, in a manner that he hoped looked sailor-like and graceful. He snuck a glance at Levi, but the older man was intent on sanding and didn't even look up.

Armin obligingly made a bit of room for him at the hull, and Eren wedged in between him and another young sailor, probably only a couple of years older than Eren himself, who introduced himself as Dieter.

"And this is Jurgen and Ivan," he said indicating the next two workers along. Eren glanced around him and smiled at them in greeting. "Are you joining our next expedition?" he asked.

"Unlikely at this rate," Levi's voice drifted down from above.

Eren looked up angrily, intending to ask why the hell not, and found himself staring at Levi's arse and legs encased in spotless white trousers. Eren completely and instantly forgot what he was going to say, or even what he was angry about, or even that he _was_ angry in the first place. His ribs suddenly felt a few sizes too small for his chest, which made no sense, but there was no better way to describe it. Levi was sitting in a loose loop of rope, reaching over the top to work, and apparently balancing without any effort at all. The rope cut across his legs just below his arse, which if anything just sort of emphasised-

"What, Eren?"

Eren shifted his gaze slightly and realised Levi was looking down at him.

"Uh, why aren't you using a ladder, Captain Levi?" he asked.

"Because I've got half a dozen prize idiots working below me, and within ten minutes one of them would have stepped backwards and knocked the ladder out from under me."

"Oh." Makes sense.

"Any more questions?"

"No, Captain!" Eren forced his gaze onto the side of the ship in front of him.

He didn't get to work for long. He was just getting into the rhythm of it when Hange called a halt as it was getting dark. The atmosphere kind of reminded him of his friends when class let out; there were sighs of relief and eager chatter. Dieter and his friends were making plans for dinner, discussing which cafe they should patronise that evening.

Levi effortlessly hauled himself out of his makeshift harness and up onto the deck of the _Freedom, _as lithe as a cat_._ Tools were put away, and the shipwright's assistants carried away the rotting timbers they'd removed.

"I won't get detention tomorrow," Eren promised Hange.

They laughed, "I hope not. Captain Levi missed you."

"Hange!" Levi growled from the deck above.

"At once, my Captain."

They must have been joking, right?

"Well, now we know how they're planning on getting all the repairs and cleaning done in a couple of weeks," Armin said, as the three of them walked home. "Apparently they all had yesterday off, which is why we were the only ones working."

"Yeah." Eren frowned. At that pace, it really wouldn't take long at all before the _Freedom_ would leave, but they still had a chance. "It sucks we have to go to school though, it wastes almost the entire day, even without detention."

"I'm sure they understand though," Armin said. "I'll see you tomorrow." He waved and they split up.

"Are you really ready to leave?" Mikasa asked, as they walked side by side.

Eren looked around at the familiar streets. If his dreams came true, he'd be leaving them in a matter of weeks, and he wouldn't see them again for months, maybe years.

"Yeah," he said, without much hesitation. "I've been waiting for this." He glanced at Mikasa; she was looking at the ground in front of her. "What about you?"

"Yes," she said without inflection. "I am prepared. Whatever is out there." She looked at him, "The only thing I could not accept is being left behind." Eren got the impression if he left without her she'd swim after him. And then probably kick his arse.

He sighed, "I hope we're going to get to do something other than scrape barnacles though. Captain Levi could just be using us as free labour."

"You did tell him you'd do anything to prove yourself. He probably picked the worst job he could think of."

"I don't know about that." Eren realised he was defending Levi purely on instinct. He didn't want to believe Levi had set out to make them miserable. He was better than that, surely.

For once Eren didn't have any homework to do that evening, and after he'd done the washing up he lay on his bed with his hands behind his head, looking up at the ceiling. The ceiling wasn't what he saw, however.

He'd never taken his eyes off the horizon, not really. But tonight he was finding it hard to concentrate on his dream. His daydreaming about the _Freedom_ always seemed to circle around to her captain, sooner or later.

Stupid, Eren thought, curling onto his side. Stupid it might be, but it felt good too, like he had something to smile about, even if he really didn't. What the hell, he'd have all afternoon tomorrow to work on the _Freedom _and he should just enjoy it. As much as it was possible to enjoy such a shit job.

"_Are you joining our next expedition?"_

"_Unlikely at this rate."_

Eren opened his eyes and sat up. He'd gotten so stupidly distracted, he'd forgotten entirely what Levi had said, but now it came back to him, the words like a bucket of cold water. Why had he said that? What had Eren done wrong? Maybe he really was just stringing them along to get some extra help- no, he couldn't believe that.

Before he gave himself time to think better of it, he grabbed his shoes and climbed out the window. It wasn't that late, but he doubted he'd get permission to go and visit Armin after the scolding he'd received the night before; he was still clearly on probation. Not that he was going to let that stop him.

He pulled on his shoes and hurried away. He wasn't entirely sure where he might find Captain Levi; he'd check the workshop and the _Freedom _herself first. Maybe Hange could tell him, if Levi wasn't there. This time he avoided the noisy cafes and inns, and kept to the quieter, residential streets. He didn't want to be caught, even though it was still relatively early.

The shipyards were deserted, the workshops dark and quiet. Eren approached the _Freedom_ and he sighed. There was no sign of anyone on board. Not a light showed in the windows and the workshop doors were shut. Eren swung his arms idly, his momentum lost. He'd hang around for a few minutes and then go home, he decided. He walked out to the edge of the dock and watched the water lapping at the stonework. He looked out over the harbour, and narrowed his eyes as he realised there was a light out on the breakwater.

The bay curved in a gentle arc, the land embracing the deepest water, and the arm of the bay had been extended with a breakwater constructed of huge blocks of stone, loosely piled, that ensured that the Shiganshina fleet was protected from all but the worst of weather. At low tide the breakwater rose several feet out of the water, and Eren had fished off there before.

There was someone out there now, he was sure of it, the light was moving, probably someone holding a lantern as they walked back towards town. Sheer curiosity had him traversing the edge of the bay. Concious of the time, he hurried, breaking into a jog occasionally.

His footsteps slowed when the lone figure came into view, hurricane lantern held loosely in one hand, bridge coat flapping around his knees as he walked. Levi looked slightly surprised when Eren walked out of the darkness, but he didn't break his stride.

Eren had a new question; just what was he doing out there? But he had enough sense not to ask. He got the impression such a question wouldn't be welcome.

"Captain Levi," Eren said. "I'm sorry."

"For what?" he asked. "As long as you're not fucking around on my ship I don't care if you skulk about town like a stray cat all night. If it's anyone's problem it's your parents', not mine."

That didn't sound like he was being told to get lost, and Eren fell into step beside Levi, on the side opposite the lantern. He could smell the oil. They walked in easy silence. Eren slid looks at Levi out of the corner of his eye. He seemed to have lost the impatient air that usually clung to him, dividing this attention between the ground in front of him and the dark sea beyond.

Eren was loath to break the silence, but he remembered he was here for a reason.

"Actually, I was looking for you, Captain," Eren said.

"Oh. Congratulations, you found me." Levi still didn't look at him and it made talking to him a bit easier.

"You said it was unlikely I get to go on your next expedition," Eren said.

"I did."

He deflated a bit, but pressed on, "Well, would you tell me why? If I'm doing something wrong I want to do better. I can do better, I swear."

"You're too young," Levi said flatly.

"What does that mean? I'm sixteen really soon. Next week, actually. It's not like I can help when I was born, Sir."

They were back among the shipyards again, and Levi paused and put his lantern down on a bollard and folded his arms.

"It's not the number of years you've lived that concerns me," Levi said. "The _Freedom_ has been crewed by sailors as young as you are before."

"So what's wrong?"

Levi turned and looked met his gaze, the lantern's flame reflected in a glowing spot in each of his eyes.

"You're simply not prepared to leave. You tell yourself that you are, but I can see you haven't truly accepted what joining an expedition would mean. Until you do, I can't in all good conscience let you come with us and tear you away from your friends and family. You need to face up to what this decision will really mean, and I can see it in your eyes that you haven't done so." Eren believed him. He believed Levi could probably read the thoughts off the back of his head if he wanted to. He'd never felt so exposed in front of anyone.

Eren swallowed, "So what should I do, Sir?"

Levi shook his head, "I can't just give you an order to follow. It has to come from within; only you can become ready and in your own time."

"And if I do?" Eren asked. "If I'm ready to leave before the _Freedom_ leaves drydock?"

"Then you'll come with us," Levi said. "But I have my doubts you'll be ready in time."

"I understand that, Captain Levi. Thank you for this opportunity." _You'll come with us_. That was enough to make Eren's heart leap.

Levi nodded, and picked up his lantern again.

"How will I know?" Eren asked.

Levi glanced at him over his shoulder. "You'll know," he said. "We'll both know."

Eren ran all the way home. He probably didn't have to, but his heart was pounding and running seemed like it would be a good excuse for it.

Levi was so _different_ at night. He'd spoken to him like an equal, without impatience or insults. It didn't seem like he'd mind too much if Eren did prove himself worthy of joining the _Freedom's_ crew, either. Eren found himself smiling again. He tiptoed up his own garden path and threw his shoes in through his open window before scrambling up after them.

He could do this, somehow. He'd convince Levi; he had to. Eren realised he was practically dancing around his room as he gathered his sleeping clothes, bouncing on the balls of his feet and nodding his head to music only he could hear. Maybe Levi had his doubts, well of course he did and he'd be mad not to, but Eren knew he could do it. He just felt too good about this for anything else to be true.

Mikasa gave him an odd look as he shuffled and stepped past her open door to the bathroom.

"I've no homework tonight!" he said, as if that was a convincing reason for his bright eyes and silly smile. "It's my birthday next week," he added, which was marginally more credible. "And we have a job on the _Freedom,_ at least for now."

"It's more like a job under the _Freedom_, you know," Mikasa replied.

"Whatever!" he said joyfully, and slid the door shut behind him.

That night he fell asleep and woke up smiling. The sky was full of fat, white clouds scudding across the limitless expanse of blue in a stiff breeze. Eren thought their might be short, sharp showers later, the kind that sent people vacating cafe tables and hiding under awnings, and ducking into shops they didn't intend to visit for five minutes until the sun came out again. The kind that left shallow, warm puddles on the streets like fallen fragments of sky that evaporated entirely within the hour, leaving Shiganshina glowing and fresh in the sunshine like it had just had a coat of paint.

He strode to school, Mikasa trotting alongside him.

"Guys!" Connie ran up to them, his shoes tied to his bag by his shoelaces and a huge crab, at least seven inches across and obviously still alive, as its unfettered legs waved helplessly in the air, held between his hands. "I caught one! I had a good feeling and I went and checked this morning. Jean was right, it was the bait. Just look at it!"

Eren laughed, happy for Connie.

Armin had been waiting further along, but he'd heard the commotion and came down the slope to join them.

Connie waved his crustacean proudly at him. "Look at it, Armin, it's huge! We're going to eat well tonight!"

"Are you seriously going to take that to school?" Armin asked, shying away from the pincers.

"Yeah. No one would believe me if I didn't show them proof. I hardly believe it myself."

"What bait did you use?" Marco asked skidding to a halt as he ran up to join them. As they approached the school, and the news of Connie's catch spread, other students started to gather to observe.

"Sweet bread," Connie said. "I stole some of Bertolt's when he wasn't looking yesterday."

"So that's what happened to it," Bertolt said. "I thought a seagull, or something similar." He glanced at Sasha. "Had grabbed it."

Sasha didn't notice. "Connie, can I come to your house for dinner? Look how big and juicy those pincers look." Apparently without fear she reached out and touched one, and managed not to lose a finger in the process, practically drooling at the thought.

"No way! This is for my family."

"You can't possibly eat all of it."

Eren stopped walking. He watched as his classmates filed in through the school gate, laughing and asking Connie how he planned to keep a live crab secret from the teachers all day. What was he doing here? He had to accept that he was going to give this up, like Levi said. He couldn't just work on the _Freedom_ whenever he felt like it and pretend that the rest of his life could continue on as usual.

Armin looked over his shoulder, "Eren?"

Eren shook his head, "I can't go to school today."

"What?"

"I have to go. I'll see you later, okay?"

"Eren!" Mikasa shouted. But Eren didn't listen. He turned away and ran.

"What is all the fuss- Connie, what the hell is that? _Don't drop it!_" He heard Shadis's voice over the uproar, and he gave thanks that Connie had covered his getaway.

The streets were full of workers making their way down to the docks, fishermen unloading the early morning catch, and the ladies and gentlemen of town doing their market shopping. Small children, too young for school, ran about the streets, laughing and playing. This was going to be his world now, Eren vowed, he wouldn't lock himself away in school like a child, he'd join this world of commerce and exploration and freedom, like a man.

He felt like he was flying as he dodged through the crowd.

When he arrived at the _Freedom's_ drydock the crew had already assembled, but work hadn't yet started. They stood around drinking cups of tea while Hange gave out the orders for the day. Levi was looking at the ship's blueprints, sitting at the workbench with a cup at his elbow.

"It's Eren," Gunther said. "You're here early."

"Don't you have school today?" Petra asked.

Eren took a deep breath, "I decided not to go. Working here is more important."

"Oh ho," Hange raised an eyebrow and looked over their shoulder at Levi. "What do you make of that, Captain Levi?"

Eren held his breath, hoping this was the right thing to do.

Levi looked up, lowering his cup from his lips. "Well, it's his decision. If he wants to work he can."

And that was that. Eren beamed with relief.

"Well, then," Hange said, consulting their schedule. "Let's see what I've got for you."

Eren started as he felt someone bend over him and sniff deeply at the back of his neck. He looked up to see a tall, bearded man with blonde hair looking down at him. Eren blinked.

"Ah, this is Mike," Eld said. "He's the ship's cook. And don't take him lightly; the cook is almost as important as the captain is on the open ocean."

"Right. Nice to meet you." He'd _sniffed_ him. Mike merely smiled and walked on.

"Don't worry, Eren," Hange said. "He thinks you're all right."

"That's good," Eren said faintly. He resisted the urge to smell himself.

"You can start off with scraping again," Hange said, making a note. "But don't worry, we assign that job in shifts so you won't have to do it all day." The first mate flicked a glance at Levi, as if they expected him to contradict them, but Levi merely collected his empty cup and took it away without comment.

"Whatever I need to do," Eren said.

"That's the spirit!"


	4. Chapter 4

Eren was sort of hoping he'd get to work underneath Levi again. Truthfully, there was no 'sort of' about it. Levi picked up from where he left off yesterday, swinging off the bowsprit and threading his legs through the rope as if it were the most natural thing in the world, and Eren decided he envied Levi's skill very much. He could only dream of being so effortlessly competent some day.

Eren had no such luck. Scraping the hull in the morning sun was even worse than it had been in the evening, although by now the hull had mostly dried out, and the smell had started to dissipate. It was still hot, and because he was apparently everyone's dogsbody, he was sent under the curve of the keel to get to the part underneath. The _Freedom_ was held in place pretty securely, but he still felt a bit unnerved with the bulk of the ship over his head.

After a couple of hours of hard work Mike banged a spoon on a pot and everyone stopped work for another cup of tea, segments of orange and some sort of scones that were all gone by the time Eren got near the plate. Petra took pity on him and gave him half of hers. It was pretty good; Mike was clearly worthy of the respect granted to him, unless of course he'd just been to a bakery and bought them.

Levi carefully cleaned all the dust off himself before accepting a cup of tea, even using the tip of a knife to get it out from under his fingernails. Eren supposed Hange was right after all; he was a clean freak. No wonder the ship was spotless above the waterline.

Eren got the feeling he was a bit of a celebrity. He got a fair amount of good-natured ribbing.

"All right, Eren? Not working too hard, I hope?"

"I always wanted a ship's mascot."

Eren didn't really mind. If he was going to go out to sea, he had to get along with these people, and even Oluo wasn't half as annoying as Jean was. He was a bit curious as to why he was such a novelty though.

"How do people normally join the crew?" he asked.

"Erwin Smith shanghais them from other shipping companies," Hange replied with a laugh. "He kidnaps them and throws them in the hold and by the time we're out to sea it's too late."

"Most of us have served an apprenticeship on another vessel," Eld explained. "Earned our sea legs on one of the traders or a fishing boat. The pay's not any better here, but if you've got a sense of adventure you apply to Mister Smith and see if there's a berth available. He keeps an eye out for promising crew members as well; some people do get recruited, but not actually kidnapped." He looked at Hange.

Hange smiled conspiratorially, "I don't know, I've heard some rumours to the contrary."

For some reason, Eren found his gaze drawn to Captain Levi, but he wasn't wearing any particular expression. He appeared to be listening with utter disinterest and more intent on his tea.

"Of course," Eld continued. "Nothing really prepares you for an expedition. The places we go aren't safe trade routes. On their first expedition, Oulo and Petra were both so sea sick they were confined to their hammocks for a week or more."

"Eld!" Petra objected. "If you say that Eren won't respect me."

"A first expedition isn't so important," Oulo objected. "What matters is what you've done since-"

"Just so you know," Gunther told Eren in an undertone. "I wasn't sick."

"Neither was I," Eld added.

Eren had no idea whether to believe any of this or not, but he laughed.

"Is it really so bad out there?" he asked.

Silence fell. Eren looked from one downcast face to another. One of the fluffy clouds drifted across the sun, and the atmosphere darkened slightly. No one would meet his eye, instead they shot glances at Levi.

Levi stood up. "There are things to be frightened of," he said shortly. "It's time to get back to work. Eren, you're with me."

"Really?" The sun didn't come out then and there, but it might well have done. Eren scrambled to his feet.

While Hange read out the next rotation of the roster, Levi lead Eren up the gangplank and onto the _Freedom's_ deck. Eren paused a moment before stepping down onto the sun-bleached planks.

"Welcome aboard the _Wings of Freedom_," Levi told him.

Eren's fist thumped into his chest as he saluted. "Thank you, Captain Levi. It's an honour."

"We may as well see if you can handle heights. If you can't go aloft there's no point." So saying, Levi started climbing the ladder up the main mast, and Eren followed. The _Freedom's _sails had been removed but her rigging was all still in place.

Levi kept up a running commentary, explaining what everything was, but Eren found it hard to pay attention. When he looked out over the town he could see the rooftops and the stretch of beach beyond as he climbed higher, when he looked up he could see Levi's boots– he wasn't game to look up any further- and when he looked down he felt slightly queasy. The deck looked a long way away.

"You'll need to use the footropes and make your way along the yard to set and stow the sails," Levi said.

"What?"

Eren's eyes widened as Levi abandoned the mast and walked out along a rope, braced between it and the yard, the crossbeam from which the sails were set. He walked along it with a look of complete unconcern, holding onto a rope run across the top of the yard, the rope under his feet taut under his weight.

Levi was obviously waiting for him. Eren cautiously put a foot on the rope.

"Not that one!" Levi shook his head. "Your weight on my rope would throw me off. Think it through, Eren."

"Sorry, Captain. Is this one right?" He kept one hand on the mast as he edged off the rungs and onto the rope. It swayed under his weight as he worked out the balance.

"Come on." Levi moved out further, making his way along the spar.

Eren followed, telling himself not to look down. It was a long way down. Levi went right to the yardarm, and Eren eventually caught up. He sighed with relief when there was no longer any further to go. The sun came out again, and they rested their arms on top of the yard and looked out at the harbour glittering in the sun.

"Wow," Eren said. "We can see so far."

"Mm." Levi launched into an explanation of how the sails were set and squared and Eren did his best to pay attention, the seagulls cawing around them. It was like there was no one else in the world but them; the sounds from below were muted by the sound of the wind moving through the rigging. Eren felt like he was flying, and the ship wasn't even moving, he could only imagine how much better it would be once they were under sail.

"Of course," Levi added. "You'll need to learn to do this when rolling on the open ocean, at night, and in bad weather."

That put a dampener on his enthusiasm. Eren glanced down, imagining the deck far below him pitching and rolling on a stormy sea. Everyone was back at work now, the scraping put on hold during the hottest part of the day, and below decks with buckets and mops.

"Yes, Captain," he said. If Levi thought he could do it, he would. He wanted to. He'd dreamed of this place, the rigging of a tall ship. He felt he belonged up here, among the ropes, with the wind his face and salt on his lips and the sun on his head, free of the bounds of earth. Even if Levi didn't let him go out to sea in the end, he was grateful that he'd got to experience this much at least.

"Well, that will do for now, I suppose," Levi said. "Back you go."

Eren wondered if Levi had just wanted an excuse to stare out at the horizon for a while; he hadn't taken his eyes off it the entire time they'd been aloft. Determined not to hold Levi up, and aware it had taken him five minutes to make his way along the spar last time, Eren moved faster, shuffling along the rope back to the mast. Hand over hand on the spar, he glanced back to see how fast Levi was following him back, to see if he looked impatient.

And Eren's foot missed the rope. His weight was already shifting forwards and he lurched into empty air and the rope swung out from underneath his other foot. Eren gasped and clung to the spar, wrapping his arms over it.

"Shit!" He hadn't fallen, just.

Where was the rope? He tried not to panic, looking down trying to see where it had gone. He caught a glimpse of his feet dangling uselessly over the drop and squeezed his eyes shut, kicking out trying to find something, anything, to put his feet on, and trying to pull himself up higher on the yard and feeling his arms slip. If he was lucky he'd break his legs, if he wasn't he'd break his neck-

"Don't panic, you useless brat," Levi's voice cut through his terror and a strong arm wrapped around his ribs. "I've got you," Levi said. "So take your time and find your foothold. You're not going to fall."

Eren could believe it as Levi's grip was strong enough to hurt. He could feel the muscles in Levi's arm against his back and ribs; and he wondered if his fingertips would leave bruises. Eren's heart still hammered in his chest, and his breathing was shallow and quick. But Levi wouldn't let him fall; Eren could feel how strong he was, his arm as steady as a rock.

"Right," he said breathlessly. He looked down again, and this time saw the ropes, not the empty space beneath them. He placed his feet carefully on the rope, only putting a bit of weight on them at first, testing his balance. Levi held him patiently. Eren could feel his body heat and when he breathed deep he could smell Levi faintly, soap and sawdust and salt and something else, clean and compelling.

He got his feet under him at last and let himself look at Levi's face.

He'd half expected he'd look angry, but Levi was watching him with calm concern. He looked, felt, was, reassuring, and Eren was reassured. And his face was _right there_. Eren could see the fine lines at the corners of his eyes, and the way a few strands of his hair brushed his cheekbones. Eren didn't think he'd ever seen anyone so hard to look away from.

"I got it," Eren said hastily. "Thank you, Captain. I'm sorry." Levi released him and Eren swallowed and took a deep breath before making his way across to the mast and down onto the deck without looking at or thinking about anything other than where he was putting his hands and feet. He didn't try and go fast this time, but it didn't take him that long in the end.

Back on the solid deck he slid to his knees. His heart was still pounding and he felt cold and sweaty and his legs were shaky and unreliable. And then he looked up at the rigging above him, and remembered Levi's arm around him and the sun in his eyes and the wind past his ears and he scrambled to his feet again as Levi dropped down onto the deck.

"I want to go back up," he said, without even thinking about it.

Levi raised his eyebrows in surprise, but he looked amused as well. "We have work to do, Eren. Later."

"I'm sorry I panicked," he said. He wasn't sorry Levi had grabbed him, not at all, but he felt like an idiot.

"If you don't pay attention when you're aloft, you're going to get seriously injured," Levi said. "I'd have thought that was obvious."

"Yes, Captain."

"Get below and help scrub the cabins out."

Eren saluted and made his way below decks. The warren of passageways and tiny rooms was disorienting, and he followed the sound of Petra's voice until he found himself in a room lined with lockers and hammocks.

"Ah, Eren." Oulo had a handkerchief tied around his face. "Now that you've finished having fun with Captain Levi, you can do some work."

Eren was left with the distinct impression that the man was jealous. It was probably for the best no one had seen how close they'd been. Eren didn't think he could handle anyone else commenting on that; he didn't know what to think about it himself and he locked any stray thoughts up in his head for later consideration. He didn't feel happy, he felt unsettled. Something was probably wrong with him for reacting like that, he was just glad his genuine panic probably hid any other inappropriate responses from Levi himself.

He spent until lunchtime cleaning out shadowy corners of the ship. Wherever he was directed he went without argument. He didn't think he'd ever done so much cleaning in his life as he had in the past three days, and it wasn't like the cabins were all that dirty, really. Petra said they were expected to sweep them out every day, but only when they were on land could they vacate the cabins and scrub them down properly. When they stopped to eat Eren unpacked the sandwiches his mother had made for him that morning and wondered how everyone was doing at school. Had they noticed he was gone? Armin would have come up with some sort of plausible excuse, probably. They didn't have school tomorrow, at least, but he wasn't sure he could keep doing this into next week without his parents finding out.

After lunch they went right back to cleaning, and then the second shift for scraping the hull. Levi barely paid any attention to Eren, concentrating on the figurehead at the prow. It was almost completely sanded, and Eren wondered if Levi was planning on repainting it himself.

The hull now had big swathes of clear patches, and the crew was obliged to start using ladders to reach the parts that had yet to be cleaned. The shipwrights had spent the morning measuring and discussing and Eren could hear the sawing of wood from inside the workshop. The man in charge was a guy named Pixis, who seemed to spend most of his time wandering the edge of the drydock observing and occasionally giving orders to his underlings. He seemed pretty happy with how the work was progressing.

As the sun dropped further, and the air cooled, Eren started to anticipate the arrival of Armin and Mikasa; school had to be out by now.

"Look at that, Eren, you've finally found something even you can do properly."

Wait a minute, that was Jean's voice.

Eren looked away from his work, twisting around on the ladder. Standing on the edge of the drydock was half the class. They were looking at the _Freedom, _and Eren himself, with amused interest.

"It's so cool," Marco said. "I've never seen it up close."

"It's bigger than I expected," Reiner said, stroking his chin as he looked up at the rigging.

"Ah! What are you all doing here?" Eren felt suddenly exposed, even though he knew no one would report him to Shadis. But he didn't want to share this with just anyone. Mikasa and Armin were putting their bags down and getting ready to join him on the _Freedom._ "Why did you tell them?" Eren asked.

"You never said it was a secret," Armin said, climbing down the ladder. "You said you weren't going to school, in front of everyone so of course they'd want to know what you were doing."

"And they wouldn't have believed we didn't know anyway," Mikasa pointed out.

"That stinks," Jean said. "This is where you've been all day?"

"No," Eren said, turning back to his work. "I've been doing other things too." Like it was his business.

"Are you really going to go to sea, Eren?" Krista asked.

"Yep!" Eren grinned. "Hey, where's Connie, anyway?" he asked, noticing he was absent.

"He got detention," Ymir said. "For bringing a hugeass crab to school. And then letting it pinch Shadis."

"Oi, brats!" The rest of the crew had been listening in to the conversation with amusement and without comment, but Levi had apparently had enough. "If you're not going to work and are just here to chat, clear off!"

"Sorry, Sir," Krista called, giving him one of her gorgeous smiles, and Eren craned his neck but couldn't see what effect, if any, it had on Levi.

"You'll let them work as well, Captain Levi?" Hange asked, with a suspiciously innocent look.

Levi grunted. "The sooner this is done, the sooner we can leave. I don't see how they could make things worse. We're not paying them."

Jean turned to go. "Why would I want to do _that_?" he shrugged.

"I wouldn't mind saying I helped out on the _Freedom," _Reiner said with a grin. "It'll look good when I apply for a berth on one of the traders."

"Are they serious?" Eren asked Armin, who shrugged.

Bertlolt followed Reiner without comment, and Krista said it might be fun, and Ymir wasn't leaving without her, and no one wanted to be left behind, so soon only Jean and Marco were left standing on the drydock, the former's brows knitted and his teeth gritted.

"Come on, Jean," Marco said with a smile. He didn't even make an argument, he merely climbed down and a few moments later Jean followed, grumbling all the while under his breath.

There were literally too many of them to scrape the hull. There weren't enough scrapers and the crew was working elbow to elbow as it was, so Hange reassigned people and soon Sasha was sweeping great arcs of soapy water over the edge of the deck, and Reiner and Bertholt were sweating and complaining as they were directed to shift heavy boxes around in storage to clean out whatever was behind them.

People introduced themselves, and if Levi didn't want people to chat he was probably going to be disappointed, but as long as everyone was working he didn't seem to mind. Aside from the odd dousing from the deck above, Eren decided this wasn't so bad.

"This is going at quite a clip, I'm impressed, Levi."

Erwin stood at the edge of the drydock, his immaculate blonde hair gleaming in the sunlight, and his cane tucked under his arm. He smiled beatifically down as he watched everyone working. There was a chorus of 'Good afternoon, Sir," and everyone made a show of putting a bit of extra effort into their work while the boss was watching.

"Still, you don't have to work them so hard," Erwin said.

"There's no profit to be made sitting in drydock, Erwin," Levi said.

"I can always rely on you to have my best interests at heart," Erwin said dryly.

Eren kept his head down and his ears open as he heard Erwin stroll down to Levi's end of the ship. They had to be on quite familiar terms if Erwin could get away with sarcasm like that.

"So many new faces, too. It's like you've talked half the town into helping."

"Recruits, Sir," Hange called.

"Free labour!" Levi retorted. "They volunteered, I saw no reason to decline."

Erwin laughed, "I'll leave it up to you, then. Ah, Pixis, it's been a while."

"Indeed! And how have you been?" The two of them strolled off. Eren and the others kept working for a bit longer, the conversation now muted by Erwin's brief visit.

"All right, all _schoolchildren_ report on deck," Levi said in a tone of voice that suggested he was giving in after a long mental argument with himself. "Hange, take them aloft and if any of them die it's your fault."

"Aye Captain."

He'd get to go aloft again! Eren stepped down off his ladder with haste. He was a bit disappointed that Levi wasn't going aloft with them, but he'd take what he could get. This time he was determined not to screw up, not least because Levi wasn't there to catch him.

Hange was up into the rigging like a rat up a drainpipe. "Come on, the weather's lovely up here!" They swung around without a care in the world, barely hanging on half the time

Reiner and Bertolt had some experience on boats already and scaled the masts confidently. With greater or lesser degrees of enthusiasm, the others followed. Eren scrambled up as quickly as he could to gaze out at the horizon again. Hange watched them from the crow's nest, shouting encouragement that sometimes was anything but encouraging.

"That's it! The fall won't kill you from that height. Unless you land on your head somehow. Isn't the breeze good up here?"

Mikasa was apparently fearless, taking to the rigging like one born to it, and Armin edged out along the footropes every slowly and carefully. Eventually everyone was up in the rigging, faces turned to the breeze, chattering like a flock of strange birds in a leafless tree.

"Wooo!" Sasha leaned against the yard and spread her arms. And Eren flinched, half-expecting her to fall, but she didn't.

"I can see my house!" Marco pointed it out to Armin, looked grateful for a reason to stop looking down.

Eren beamed, pleased that everyone liked it as much as he did. Hange told them to move around, and explained how the sails worked, as they shuffled back and forth, gradually getting the feel for walking on the ropes and keeping their balance. No one fell and broke any bones. Eren convinced himself he was getting the hang of it. He stopped feeling queasy when he looked down, at least.

They didn't actually do any more work that day, and Eren wondered if Levi was feeling guilty for taking advantage of a bunch of teenagers to get his ship cleaned faster. As the sun started to set, everyone packed away the tools and went home. Armin asked Eren if he was going to go to school next week, and Eren said he wasn't sure.

Mikasa waited for him.

"It's okay," he said. "I just want to talk to the Captain for a minute. I'll catch you up."

Levi was cleaning the paint dust off himself, brushing it irritably out of his clothes and hair. As Eren approached, he remembered how that arm had felt around him, and his steps faltered slightly. They'd been so close.

"Yes, Eren?" Levi looked at him.

"I'm prepared to give up school, Captain."

"That must be hard for you." He said it so flatly it took Eren a second to realise he was being sarcastic.

"My point is, if I skip school too much, my parents are going to notice and they might forbid me from coming at all. I just want you to know that even if I go back to school, that doesn't mean I'm not prepared-"

"I notice you didn't actually sacrifice any time with your friends in the end," Levi said.

"That's hardly my fault, Sir," Eren said. "I didn't ask them to come here."

Levi gave him a strange look. "Mm."

"Anyway, there's no school tomorrow, so I'll be here," Eren said.

"Hasn't it occurred to you that we'll be taking the day off as well?" Levi asked. "There are no days off at sea, only times when there is little to do. It would be somewhat unfair not to give the crew some shore leave."

"Oh." He couln't help but feel disappointed. He wanted to spend another day with Levi. That is, working on the _Freedom,_ proving himself.

"Well," Levi shrugged. "It's up to you, there might be someone around if you honestly have nothing better to do."

Was that an invitation? Eren wasn't sure. He didn't want to leave, but he couldn't think of anything else to say, and the others were halfway back along the docks, and he was probably holding Levi up from doing whatever it was he did when the day's work was done.

"Captain, are you coming with us?" Petra called.

"No," Levi said in a tone that left no room for argument.

Eren supposed he had an important appointment at the end of the breakwater.

"Thank you for today," Eren said and saluted.

Levi nodded at him and he said his goodbyes to the others and hurried to catch up to Mikasa.

Eren caught up with his friends, but didn't join in the conversation. Levi had seemed disappointed that they'd all showed up, even though he'd let them on board his ship. He wondered if Levi felt he was just humouring a bunch of kids.

He realised Armin was trying to tell him something.

"Come over tomorrow, and we can work on it together," he said.

"Huh?"

"Homework, Eren."

"I copied down the questions for you," Mikasa added. "Shadis said to make sure you got them."

"Oh." Eren sighed. "Right."

One by one the others said goodnight and drifted away from the group, and he and Mikasa walked home in silence. Mikasa didn't tell his parents that he hadn't attended school, and the conversation at the dinner table revolved around Eren's upcoming birthday.

"Connie, and Sasha too." Eren's mother was making a list of everyone who could be expected to show up and working out how much food would be needed. Since Sasha was invited, it was going to be a lot.

Eren rested his chin on his hands, watching her neat writing fill up the page of the notebook. They were going to hold the party at the beach if the weather was fine; the Jaeger's kitchen was far too small to hold everyone.

"Anyone else?" Carla asked.

"I." Eren frowned. Would it be weird to invite the crew? It might look bad if he didn't. Would Captain Levi come? "I don't know. Um."

Carla sighed, "Well, it's fine if you want more people, it is your sixteenth and you're old enough to decide who you're going to invite, but we're going to have trouble paying for any more food."

"Why not make it a pot luck?" Grisha, who'd been writing some case notes, looked up from his work. "Everyone can bring something, and we'll just provide a cake and something to drink maybe. Or sandwiches. It will be a picnic."

Eren grinned, "I think that's a great idea, thanks Father."

Carla smiled, "That certainly takes the pressure off me, too." His parents chuckled at Eren's expression. "Look at him, he's planning on inviting half the town."

Mikasa just looked knowing.

He'd been so distracted by the events of the afternoon, and looking forward to his party, that it hit him like a ton of bricks when he sank down into the bathtub that evening; Levi had held him. Levi hadn't left any bruises, but Eren could still feel his embrace. Eren buried his face in his hands. Aw, come on, he was acting like a-

Like a teenager with a crush. He could just imagine what Levi would make of _that_. Eren scowled and looked at his knees rising out of the water. They looked bulbous and ungainly at that angle. Maybe Levi liked cute pretty girls, not lumpy teenage boys. Maybe Levi didn't like anyone. Oddly, that was a more comforting thought.

He sighed and rested his arms on the edge of the tub to mope until the water had gone cold and Mikasa knocked on the bathroom door to ask if he'd fallen asleep and could he hurry up and let her have her turn.


	5. Chapter 5

My apologies, anon, this will be a Levi/Eren story eventually. I forgot this place doesn't have tags. I've edited the summary to squeeze the information in as well.

* * *

"Don't follow me, Eren," Mikasa said the next morning. "I have to get you a present."

"I can't believe you left it so late," Eren said as they washed up the breakfast things.

"I've been busy, thanks to you," Mikasa said. "I'll be back by lunch, anyway. We can visit Armin after and do homework."

"Yeah, okay." Eren didn't mind, even if doing homework struck him as a waste of an afternoon. It did give him a chance to head down to the _Freedom_ and see if anyone was about, and he left to do so as soon as he could.

The sky was covered in a thin layer of cloud that didn't look like it was going to rain at least. It was still bright and hot, but there were no shadows and the sea was sparkling silver. Eren found himself squinting as he strolled down to the docks. He noticed a few of the crew members having a long, lazy breakfast in a cafe and talking but they didn't notice him, and Eren didn't stop to chat either.

As he'd half-expected, the _Freedom_ was deserted. Only a couple of cats were lurking about, and they fled at his approach. Eren sighed and shoved his hands into his pockets. Maybe he should visit the breakwater. He didn't have anything else to do, unless he wanted to see if someone else was as bored as he was.

He started walking along the arm of the bay at a brisk pace. It was interesting seeing the town from this angle; Eren didn't come out here often, and he got a good view of a trader making her way out of the harbour, almost managing to keep pace with the ship as she glided out towards the ocean.

He was almost at the breakwater, and could hear the water rushing and gurgling through the rocks when he realised there was someone sitting on the end. He couldn't see a fishing rod, they were just staring out over the ocean. Eren's heart kicked a little in his chest.

He rolled up his trouser legs and took off his shoes to get a better grip on the damp stone, and started hopping along the top of the breakwater, one rock to the next. The big dark blocks of basalt were hot, even though the sun was filtered through the clouds. He could see shells and barnacles clinging to the sides of the stones, and salt spray sprinkled down over him every time one of the larger waves broke around the barrier. Slipping occasionally, he made his way along, and it was soon clear that it was Captain Levi who was sitting out there.

He glanced up as Eren approached. He looked surprisingly comfortable for someone sitting on a block of stone, one leg dangling over the edge, the other bent up so he could rest an elbow on his knee. The breeze ruffled his hair, and Eren could see spots of spray on his coat. He didn't look entirely surprised to see Eren.

"Good morning, Captain Levi," Eren said. He didn't have anything specific he wanted to say, now that he was here, and Levi watched him fidget for a few moments of awkward silence.

"You can sit down if you want," Levi said. "It's not like I own it."

"I don't want to bother you." Levi didn't reply. "Thank you." Eren sat, leaving what he hoped was a polite distance between them, but no more than that. He dangled his legs over the edge of the rock, watching the foamy water rise and fall beneath his feet.

Levi went back to looking at the horizon. This was what he was doing on his day off, Eren realised. Staring out to sea and waiting for the time to come when he could leave this place, a time that couldn't come soon enough. Eren frowned and kicked his feet idly. He was happy that his presence didn't bother Levi any, at least, but it was lonely out here. The only sounds were the crash of the waves and the cries of the gulls.

"Hey, a sail," he said, pointing it out on the horizon.

"Mm."

So much for that as a conversation starter. Eren glanced at Levi and then looked away again.

"Captain Levi, can I ask you something?"

"You just did." He took his eyes off the sea and met Eren's disappointed look. "Ask, Eren."

"What's wrong with Shiganshina? You must hate it to want to leave so badly. Everyone knows you're impatient to leave."

Levi sighed, "I don't hate it. There's nothing wrong with it. It's a fine town, with nice people and a peaceful atmosphere." He gave Eren a look that was so sad it made something twist inside his chest. If Levi thought he was smiling, he was doing a terrible job of it. "If you decided not to leave, I wouldn't blame you, you know." His eyes looked as silver as the sea in the strange muted sunlight.

What _was_ this? He wasn't going to just give up, how could he make Levi see that? "I want to leave," Eren said, leaning forward, willing Levi to understand.

"Do you?"

"I don't belong here either, I need to be out there, beyond the horizon." He swallowed, and wondered why this was scarier than losing his foothold in the rigging. "With you," he muttered. He looked down at his hands, his fingers twisting over each other, and hoped that Levi hadn't actually heard him.

"Eren." When Eren looked up Levi was much closer. His eyes widened and he held his breath as the older man reached over and cupped his cheek. Levi looked like he did when he looked at the horizon, but now he was looking at _him_.

"Yes?" He leaned in like Levi had, tilting his head into Levi's gentle touch, hoping Levi would stroke.

"You need to ask yourself something," Levi said. He was close enough that Eren could feel his breath against his cheek. His gaze never left Eren's and Eren couldn't have looked away from those infinitely grey eyes if he'd wanted to. "An important question you need to consider before you can go any further." His thumb was right next to the corner of Eren's mouth.

"I want to go further," he breathed. Wherever this was going, he wanted it to go further.

He felt Levi draw breath and he spoke.

A sound like breaking glass.

Eren opened his eyes.

No. No, no, no. It was just getting good. Something must have woken him up. He closed his eyes and burrowed into his pillow, trying to catch the fading thread of the dream. They were sitting on the breakwater and Levi was going to kiss him. Still half asleep, Eren's defences were down; he just wanted to go back to that dream and he plunged head first into fantasy without even thinking about it. His lips twitched against the pillowcase as he pressed them against Levi's mouth, wrapped his arms around him, maybe sat on his lap, no wait, Levi rolled him onto his back instead. Were they still on the breakwater? Who cared.

Eren moved his hips. He had an erection like he did almost every morning, but today he didn't have to will it away while he got ready for school. So he pressed it against the mattress, feeling the material of his shorts pull tight against it. It was probably a good thing the dream had ended before he made a mess, but he couldn't help feeling disappointed too. It was his concious mind driving the images behind his eyelids now and he knew it was all pretend.

He kept his face pressed against the pillow, turning his head slightly so he could breath out of his nose. It sounded loud. He lifted his hips a little, giving himself just enough room to side his hand down past his hip, and wrap his fingers around his cock.

He pretended they were Levi's fingers, that Levi himself was kneeling behind him, over him, lazily stroking his cock and pressing his lips to the back of his neck. Eren arched his back and curled his legs up a little, lifting his arse to Levi's groin. It was a ridiculous position, he could barely breathe and his neck started hurting almost immediately. But he was concentrating now, set in his fantasy of pleasing Levi like this, and he moved his hand faster, finding the rhythm that he liked. He made little sounds in the back of his throat, muffling them in the pillow. He tried to imagine Levi's voice breathing his name in his ear.

He wrapped Levi's other hand, the one that wasn't gliding up and down his cock, and tugging at the foreskin, and squeezing the head, around his ribs. He knew what that felt like. He'd never forget it. He gasped, unable to keep his mouth closed any longer, panting against the pillow.

He didn't last long. He only had to imagine Levi rolling his hips forward, imagine him _hard_ and Eren stifled himself against his pillow, his hips rocking down against his hand in a few last, desperate thrusts and he squeezed the end of his cock, catching most of the warm gooey mess in his hand. He gritted his teeth, the last spurts of heat jetted into his cupped fingers. Then he relaxed, still holding the end of his cock.

He rolled onto his side, easing the pressure on his neck at last. Oh, did he feel stupid now. What kind of half-arsed juvenile fantasy was that? They were going to sit on the breakwater and kiss? Yeah right. Mikasa would go out with Jean before that happened. Before anything happened.

Eren opened his eyes and sighed. He could hear birds twittering in the garden outside, and the morning sun was filtering in through his curtains. He could smell breakfast cooking. There was a damp patch on his pillow where he'd drooled on it in his mindless lust. There was no point in staying in bed, even though he could sleep in today. He didn't want to be anywhere near the scene of his crime. He rolled out of bed with his hand still down his shorts, and opened the door a crack to check the coast was clear before he made a dash for the bathroom to clean himself up.

After breakfast Mikasa suggested they go to Armin's early so they could get their homework out of the way first. Eren didn't object; he didn't want to see Levi today after all. He got the horrible feeling that if he did, Levi would take one look at him and know what he'd been doing that morning. He didn't want to think about him even, but he knew better than to expect that would happen.

"Don't you need to get me a present?" he asked as they closed the front door behind them.

Mikasa looked offended, "You think I haven't already got you one?"

"I dreamt that you hadn't," Eren admitted.

"Huh!" She flicked her hair over her shoulder as she marched down the path.

"It was really vivid," Eren muttered. He could still see all of Levi's expressions, and it made him feel lonely. Maybe he was sitting out on the breakwater right now. Or maybe he wasn't, and Eren just had an over-active imagination and Levi was having tea with Erwin or Hange and wasn't lonely at all.

He couldn't convince himself of the latter.

They did their homework and invited Armin back home for lunch. They made tomato and cheese sandwiches on brown bread, and decided to swim in the afternoon, since the weather was nice.

"We need to tell everyone about the pot luck too," Mikasa said. "So they have some time to prepare."

"That's a good idea," Armin said. "I don't know what I'm going to bring. Grandfather isn't a very good cook. I mean, he's fine! His omelettes are great. But you can't bring omelettes to a picnic. Would sandwiches be okay? They'd be good ones."

They wandered the streets of Shiganshina, knocking on the doors of their friends' houses and spreading the news. By the time they made it down to the beach, almost everyone had decided to come with them. Connie told them in great detail how delicious the crab he'd caught was, and how it had been totally worth getting detention for. He was less certain of the latter when Marco told him how everyone else had spent their afternoon.

"You got to climb the _Wings of Freedom? _Argh! Why does the only interesting thing happen when I'm not there. Can we go next week?"

Everyone looked at Eren.

"Don't ask me. That's up to the Captain."

"I don't understand why you guys are so keen to scrape crap of the bottom of a ship anyway," Jean said. "He said he wasn't going to pay you."

The conversation didn't last long. They were at the beach and the tide had only just started to turn. They kicked off their shoes and stripped down to their underclothes and ran into the water. It was cool and clear, and once the initial shock of the temperature changed passed, it was perfect. Krista didn't want to get her hair wet and Reiner joked that he'd dunk her and Ymir actually _pounced_ on him and tried unsuccessfully to pull him down under the water.

They dove down to look for interesting things on the sandy bottom of the bay, and Jean and Eren had a contest to see who could hold their breath the longest, but Jean cheated by poking him in the ribs and Eren tried to choke him. Connie was convinced he'd cracked the secret of crab hunting, and was deflated only slightly by his empty trap. Tomorrow for sure.

Sasha sidled up to people with a smile like a particularly hungry shark and asked them what they were planning to bring to Eren's party, and tried to convince them to bring extra.

"What are you going to bring?" Marco asked.

"Potato salad!" she yelled, hurling herself backwards into the water with a splash.

"Like you needed to ask," Jean said.

They made their way down the beach away from the shelter of the bay and tumbled around in the breakers for a while. Armin got knocked off his feet about twenty times, and it got to the point where people started shouting a warning to him every time a larger-than usual wave rolled in to shore. They ploughed through the surf, moving further out, and they floated in deeper water, letting the waves lift them up and down gently, watching the clouds piling up in the sky.

Eren licked the salt off his lips and daydreamed that Levi was with them. Or just with him, no one else. Would this make him happy? The sky and the sea, nothing else. Or were they still too far away from the horizon?

He wondered what Levi had been going to ask him. He remembered the gist of the rest of the conversation, but at the end he was straining forward to touch Levi's lips and his words were a blur.

Eventually they grew tired of swimming, exhausted by the ebb and flow, and they hauled themselves out of the surf, waterlogged and dripping. They walked along the beach, back towards town, letting the water dry on their skin, the salt matting their hair making it feel clogged and dirty, the sand caking on their feet and legs.

Their clothes were where they'd left them, and they pulled them back on as the western sky turned gold and red and Shiganshina lit its lamps and went out for a drink. Carla had given Eren a handful of coins before he'd left for the beach and he spent them at a shop near the waterfront that smelled of oil. Carefully, he and Mikasa carried home paper cones of fried fish and potato as his mouth watered at the smell.

It was still a bit light when they ate dinner, spreading the greasy paper across the kitchen table and eating with their hands. Sated, Eren licked the salt and vinegar off his fingers. He thought that he was probably happy, but it was a strange happiness; incomplete, somehow. He didn't talk much, just letting the conversation flow up and down the table as his parents discussed the upcoming week.

He hadn't seen Levi all day, but he'd never been far from his thoughts, either. His happiness would be better if he could share it with the Captain. It was probably impossible for him to make Levi happy though.

He couldn't remember his dreams that night. He was a bit disappointed.

"You're going to school today." The expression on Mikasa's face suggested that if he didn't she'd knock him out and carry him there herself. "I don't mind helping you out occasionally but I'm not going to keep lying to our teachers just so you can mess about on a boat."

"Fine. I already told the Captain I might not be able to take any more time off school." Levi had been indifferent. Eren wasn't sure what he was supposed to do now, so he took the path of least resistance and meekly followed Mikasa to school.

They didn't get a lot of work done. The class was rowdy and argumentative, and it was stifling hot. Shadis kept pinching the bridge of his nose like he was getting a headache and he ended up throwing half a box of chalk at various students over the course of the day.

Eren copped three. He nearly threw the last one back.

It started getting dark before school had ended. The bay didn't sparkle that afternoon, and Eren's view out the window showed the clouds building higher and getting darker out to sea. No one suggested going to the beach. They scrawled down their homework and Shadis let them go a bit early.

Even so, thunder was rolling in from the ocean, like a drum roll announcing a new and exciting performance, by the time they were let out of school. Eren could see the waves hurling themselves against the breakwater in a fury, the breakwater itself a scar of white against the dark sea, even from town. Everyone was going straight home.

Except Eren.

"I'm just going to run down to the docks, really quick," he told Mikasa.

"Eren, they'll have seen the weather as well; they won't be expecting us today. They're probably stopped already!" She shouted the last two words as another rumble of thunder reverberated across the sky.

"Even so, will you take my bag home for me?"

"All right. Try not to get caught in the rain."

The sky over the ocean was a deep shade of indigo. The cafes had closed early, all the tables and chairs taken inside, the cats had vanished, and even the seagulls were ruffling their feathers and shrieking as the gusts of wind blew them off course. The streets were almost deserted, save for a few fishermen making sure their boats were secured. The fleet was all at harbour, sails furled, hatches battened. The breakwater would protect them from the roughest seas, but the wind could still cause damage. Eren ran.

As Mikasa had predicted, work on the _Freedom_ had stopped. The crew was gathered in the workshop, the lamps already lit, cleaning and putting away the last of the tools.

"Eren," Petra spotted him first. "The weather's turned bad. We've stopped for the day."

"I know," Eren said, catching his breath.

"Did you run here?" Hange asked.

"Yes."

"Take a breather," Eld said, slapping him on the back. They were getting ready to leave, throwing oilskin jackets over their clothes as the horizon disappeared into a haze of rain.

"Um, everyone," Eren said. "Before you go."

"What is it, brat?" Oulo said, tucking his cravat under his jacket and turning the collar up. "I'd rather not get soaked if I could help it so make it quick."

"Tomorrow is St Sina's day, and we don't have school," Eren began. "But, uh, it's also my birthday," he lowered his voice, but kept going. "We're going to have pot luck lunch on the beach and you are all welcome to come!"

His announcement was greeted with raised eyebrows and amused smiles.

"Eren, you're adorable," Hange said.

"Can we go?" Petra asked.

The question hung in the air as everyone turned to Levi, who was buttoning up his coat. He looked at them.

"Well, if you want." He shrugged.

Eren smiled.

"Ha! I'll see you there," Eld said.

Eren ducked his head as his hair was ruffled and his back was slapped. He got the impression his popularity was mainly due to earning everyone some extra time off work. He didn't really mind.

"I'll bring beer!" Gunther said.

"You can't bring beer," Petra objected.

"You can't have a picnic without beer." They left quickly, and Eren could see large spots of rain appearing on the side of the dock and he could hear the rustle of it hitting the ocean over the sound of the wind as a curtain of water was drawn along the bay.

"You've left it a bit late to leave." Levi was the last one left, bending down and blowing out the lamps. Eren helped him close the big doors to the workshop and stood under the eaves of the building as the rain started to fall in earnest. Levi had his oilskin jacket over his arm.

"Thank you for giving your permission, Captain Levi," Eren said. He knew that stealing the crew away for a few hours would slow down the work on the _Freedom, _and Levi was under no obligation to let them go, so he was grateful.

"Mm." Levi secured the workshop doors as firmly as possible. Even, so they were rattling against the frame in the gusts of wind. Eren couldn't see the breakwater any more and it was as dark as early evening. It was hard to believe that somewhere above all that cloud the sun was still shining brightly.

"You're welcome at the party too, Captain Levi. You don't have to bring anything," Eren said hopefully, and loudly, to be heard over the sound of the rain.

"_Why are you still here_?" Levi snapped irritably. "You're going to get soaked. And I don't go to children's birthday parties."

"I'm not a child, I'm sixteen tomorrow!" Eren retorted. He caught a glimpse of Levi's face, illuminated by a flash of lightning. "All right, I'm going."

"You'll only be one day older than you are today," Levi pointed out. "Wait!" Eren had turned to go, braced for the rain, when Levi's hand shot out and grabbed his wrist. "I already said you'd left it too late, didn't I?" Levi sighed and handed him his oilskin. "Here, use this."

"Um, Levi?"

"It's not a gift. I want it back."

"But what about you?" Levi was turning up the collar of his bridge coat, for all the good it would do.

"I don't have to go as far as you do. Just take it." With that he stomped off into the rain, his hair plastered against his head almost instantly. Eren could only stand and stare for a few moments, the coat clutched in his hands. It felt soft and slightly greasy, the heavy cotton soaked with oil. He shrugged it on, doing up the buttons on the front hastily. The sleeves were a little short on him, and it only came down to his knees. This really was Levi's coat. It didn't smell of anything but linseed though.

Eren stuck his hands into the pockets and found a sou'wester tucked neatly inside one of them. He unfolded it and set it on his head and dashed out into the rain. Everything below his knees got soaked in seconds, and he had to keep brushing water out of his eyes, but the oilskins did their job and he remained mostly dry. He saw one or two other people, similarly garbed, running either for shelter or to secure something.

Eren practically felt his way home. Rain was falling so hard that the gutters were like little rivers, and water poured down the steps and overflowed gutters in great sheets that splattered down onto the cobblestones. Occasionally a gust of wind would threaten to knock him off his feet, and thunder clapped over his head.

When he got home the lights were all on, even though it was still only late afternoon. He staggered in the front door and tried to shake the rain off the jacket without getting it all over the hallway.

"There you are," Carla said, coming to greet him with a towel over her arm. "I'd thought you'd drowned." Her eyes widened when she saw his outfit. "Where did you get that?"

"I just went to the docks to explain that I had a birthday tomorrow," He said ruffling his hair, trying to unstick his bangs from his forehead. He took off the oilskin and hung it up before taking off his shoes as well and accepting the towel. "Thanks. Captain Levi lent me this gear to get home in."

"I see." His mother's opinion on Captain Levi was ambivalent at best. She knew he was someone Eren had looked up to for a long time, but she still didn't look happy that he might manage to make his boyhood dreams a reality sooner rather than later.

Eren dried himself off, and while the storm raged outside, Carla made them all cups of tea and fussed over whether or not Grisha was caught in the rain somewhere. The rain didn't let up all evening, and Eren did his homework listening to it gurgle in the gutters and splat against his window.

He did his work early and after dinner, which was interrupted by his father arriving home soaked to the bone, he and Mikasa started cooking for the party. Carla cooked too, despite the fact that everyone was to bring something she was still making food 'just in case someone forgets.'

Eren and Mikasa beat eggs and creamed butter and spilled flour on the counter tops as they made the cake.

"What if it's still raining tomorrow?" Mikasa asked, chopping strawberries.

"Don't say that!" Eren said bending down to check the fire in the wood stove.

"We'll just have to hold it here," Carla said. "And cram everyone in somehow."

Eren didn't know how they were going to do that. He hadn't honestly expected such an enthusiastic reaction from the _Freedom's_ crew and he wasn't sure how to break the news to his mother than their guest list had doubled. He was just going to keep quiet and pretend to be as surprised as everyone else when they showed up, he decided.

Please don't let it rain tomorrow, he thought.

They stayed up late cooking and keeping Grisha from snacking on things once he came down from his bath. Carla cooked a chicken to have cold, and made sandwiches.

"You're going to have too much food anyway," Grisha said with a grin, helping himself to a drumstick, completely undeterred by Carla slapping at his hands as he did so. Eren suspected his father was probably right, but he didn't think he'd mind if he had to eat leftovers for a few days afterwards.

The cake came out of the oven and it looked like it would be a success. They seemed to have used every dish in the house to help make it and there was flour spilled on the table, and Eren was asleep on his feet when he finally dried the last spoon and tossed it into the draw.

He and Mikasa stumbled upstairs to their rooms and Eren tumbled into bed and dreamt of nothing.

At some point during the night, Eren woke up to a strange absence. He lifted his head, wondering what was different. Silence. The rain had stopped. He smiled and went back to sleep.

He hadn't imagined it. He was woken up by birdsong and sunlight, and the incoherent sense that today was important and he had to get up_ right now_ which is why he ended up wide awake ages before he had to be.

He woke up sixteen.

He grinned, "Yes!" He walked around his room, wondering what to do. No one else seemed to be awake yet. Eventually, despite the fact that on today of all days he'd be allowed to take it easy, he got dressed and went downstairs to make toast and fried eggs for everyone.

They spent the morning whipping cream and decorating the cake and packing up what was left of the chicken after Grisha had been at it. Carla covered for him by sectioning the bird up.

"Chicken pieces are a little less impressive than a whole chicken," she said. "But a lot more impressive than a chicken that _someone _has clearly been gnawing on."

"I couldn't help myself," Grisha said, amused. "It smelled too good."

"Flatterer." She smiled at her husband. "Make yourself useful and pack some plates. And where did those lemons go? Oh, you've started already, Eren. You'll have to pick the seeds out if you're going to do it that way. I don't think lemonade is supposed to be lumpy."

"Yes, Mother, I know."

He looked up at her as she stood by the stove, and saw the grey in her hair and the lines on her face. She smiled at him, a little sad, a lot proud.

"What?" Eren asked, pretending he didn't know.

"Happy Birthday, sweetheart." She sniffed and blinked and turned back to the chopping board. "Right, mustn't get distracted, we'll run out of time."

Eren claimed he'd managed to squirt lemon juice in his eye and that was why they were red when Mikasa asked him if he was all right a few minutes later. But he didn't let her take over juicing the fruit.


	6. Chapter 6

Despite the fact that they'd started early they still weren't leaving until the last minute, baskets and boxes under their arms. In the hallway, Eren walked past Levi's oilskin, still hanging on the hook near the door. He took it down and draped it over his shoulders.

"I'll give it back to him today," he told Mikasa.

Later. A perfect excuse. Maybe Levi would wish him a happy birthday.

The rain had washed the world clean, and the ocean looked fat and sluggish, half-heartedly rolling big, lazy waves in towards the beach. When they arrived at the site they'd chosen some of the guests were already there. Armin could be relied on to turn up early, and Sasha was there too, waving her arms at the seagulls trying ineffectually to scare them off and beside herself with excitement.

It didn't take long for everyone else to start arriving. Carla looked slightly stunned when the _Freedom's_ crew showed up. Gunther had a barrel of beer over his shoulder, as promised. Even Oluo brought a bunch of oranges in a string bag along. Petra gave Eren a box of chocolates. Hange brought along some seaweed salad, which they said was edible and delicious; out of politeness Eren tried some and while he was willing to accept the former, the latter was definitely not true. Mike had made some sort of amazing slice with chocolate and pecans in it (or he'd bought it somewhere.) They laid blankets out on the dunes and Sasha watched, her eyes shining, as they were gradually covered with plates of sandwiches and cakes and cold meat and salads and sweet things.

Connie arrived with a big plate covered in a cloth.

"I got you a present and food in one, Eren," he said. He whisked the cloth away. "Ta da! I caught another crab and my mother cooked it for us."

"Connie! That's the most amazing present ever! Thank you!" Sasha flung her arms around his neck, while Eren looked on, bemused.

"Kiss him!" Eld shouted and Eren had to dart in and rescue the plate before Connie dropped it out of sheer embarrassment. Sasha didn't follow the suggestion, but she did go a brilliant shade of red.

As Grisha had predicted, there was a lot of food. There was also a lot of people. Once divided up equally Gunther's barrel of beer only stretched to a small glass for everyone, but that didn't stop the party getting rowdy. Teenagers dashed into and out of the surf to cool off, torn between burning off the sugar and trying to look grown up in front of the sailors, some of whom eventually joined them in the surf anyway. Carla wore her largest straw hat and sat on the blanket, helping keeping the gulls away from the food, and smiling at everyone. Every time Eren spoke to her she shooed him away, telling him to have fun.

Armin gave Eren a compass that his grandfather had said he could have. Mikasa gave him a nice pair of gloves that it wouldn't be cold enough to wear for months at least. Carla got him new shoes, which he needed, and Grisha gave him money, which he wanted. Almost everyone else got him sweets purchased with pocket money. Jean got him nothing, but he did bring a frankly delicious treacle tart to the party in his mother's best baking dish and Eren had to work at being offended.

They played in the surf and then they ate, and then no one felt like playing any more. Sasha nearly cried when Ymir accidentally knocked a bowl Reiner's mother's beetroot dip into the sand. They sang a birthday song and cut the cake, and everyone had to make do with tiny slices because there were so many people, but no one really minded because there was no shortage of things to eat. They lazed around in what shade there was, overfed and sleepy and getting sunburnt, picking at the leftovers and talking. It was the best birthday he'd ever had, Eren decided. It might be the last one he'd have in Shiganshina, and he was glad it had been good.

He wasn't really surprised Levi hadn't shown up, even though part of him had been hoping he'd drop by, even for a little while. When he'd asked Hange where the Captain was, they said he was overseeing the repairs on the _Freedom's_ hull, which were continuing in the absence of the crew.

"I see," Eren said. He glanced over at the folded bundle of oilskin near the empty food baskets.

They stayed their most of the afternoon. The shadows were starting to creep across the bay when they decided to pack up the leftovers, shake the sand out of the blankets, and head home.

"It was a lovely party, Eren, thank you for inviting us," Petra said. "I'm sorry it's over."

"Yeah, me too."

"It's going to be hard to leave, isn't it?" she said, looking at the town rising above the beach.

Eren's first impulse was to deny it. He didn't want to have any doubts or hesitations; if he wasn't ready, Levi wouldn't let him leave. But if he was being honest, it would be hard to say goodbye to all of this.

"I'm going to miss everyone," he said quietly.

"Well, of course you are." Petra smiled at him. "It was a farewell party too, wasn't it?"

Eren hoped so.

He didn't go home with everyone else.

"I have to give the coat back to Captain Levi," he told his parents.

"I'll take it back if you want," Hange offered.

"No, it's fine. I was so surprised he lent it to me I didn't even say thank you." Eren hoped Levi was still at the shipyard, and he thanked everyone again for making his birthday a success and hurried off. The setting sun was casting a deep orange light across Shiganshina when Eren arrived at the drydock.

Pixis and Levi were still there, even though work had finished for the day, standing on the edge and talking quietly. They paused when Eren ran up.

"Ah, the birthday boy," Pixis said. "How was the party?"

"Very good, thank you, Sir." Eren had never spoken to Pixis before, but he seemed genuinely pleased.

He opened his coat and took out a silver flask. "Here, have some. Happy Birthday."

"Thank you." Eren took the proffered flask and unscrewed the top and took a swig. He instantly regretted it. It was horrible. Eren wasn't sure it wasn't some sort of joke and without thinking he spat it right back out again. "Pfft!" Luckily he didn't spray it at Pixis, or worse, Levi, and the liquid stung the back of his throat. He coughed and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. The lines around Pixis's eyes deepened as the shipwright smiled. Eren blinked away water in his eyes and handed the flask back.

"Thank you," he managed to get out. "Sir."

Levi actually looked amused as he watched the performance, but he didn't say anything, simply leaning against the railing and observing.

"Maybe it will be more to your taste next year," Pixis said. "I'll see you tomorrow, Captain Levi."

As Pixis walked back to town Eren looked over the side of the drydock at the _Freedom_ and was startled to see that the boards had been replaced already, the new ones pale and clean compared to the rest of the hull.

"Wow, it's already done," Eren said, feeling a small stab of panic.

"Pixis works fast," Levi said. "That's why I chose his shop. But the hull still needs to be repainted, so we're not leaving quite yet." He clearly knew what Eren was thinking.

"Ah. Good," Eren said, a bit guiltily. He wanted more time. "Um, thank you for lending me your coat." He held it out to Levi.

Levi took it back and started brushing out the wrinkles and folding it neatly over his arm, rather than leaving it bunched the way Eren had been holding it. It had been Levi's decision to loan it and walk to wherever he was staying in the rain, but Eren felt he should apologise for it anyway.

"The party was really good," Eren said. This was just like his dream; not the good part, but the part where he couldn't work out what he wanted to say.

"I suppose you should get a present," Levi said.

"I already got-" Wait. _What?_ Eren turned sharply to look at Levi, but he was smoothing out the sleeves of his coat and paying him no attention. Did he just offer to give him a present? "Um. Anything would make me very happy, Captain," he said cautiously. He didn't want to seem ungrateful or like he thought Levi was obligated.

"All right then, follow me." Levi tucked his folded coat under his arm and walked around the end of the drydock and onto the _Freedom_, Eren following close at his heels. His heart was thumping; he couldn't begin to guess what Levi was going to give him. He wondered if they were just going to go aloft again, but instead Levi led him across the quarterdeck and through a door towards the stern of the vessel. Eren hadn't been here before. Like everywhere else below deck it was cramped and close.

It was only when Levi opened a door and ushered him through that Eren realised he'd been invited into the captain's quarters. The last of the day's sunlight was pouring through the lead light windows at the back, dyeing the room and everything in it a deep shade of red. Eren stood in the doorway, looking around at the roll-top desk, the charts pinned to the walls, and the single narrow bed at the back. It was far more luxurious than the cabins he'd seen earlier, but it was still about as Spartan and small as his own bedroom. It was a lot neater than his bedroom too; there wasn't a single object out of place, or any dust. He would have expected nothing less of Levi.

Eren stepped smartly out of the way when Levi brushed past him to hang his oilskin up from a hook on the wall. Then he unbuttoned his bridge coat and hung that up next to it.

Eren's heart skipped a beat. He surreptitiously pinched the back of his hand, wondering if he was dreaming again. What sort of present was this going to be? Whatever it was, he thought, I'm ready. He wouldn't disappoint Captain Levi.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Levi asked him in an irritated tone.

"Sir?"

"You look constipated."

Eren didn't know what to say to that so he said nothing, and tried to force his face to relax. Levi looked at him for a long moment, his expression unreadable.

"Well then," he said eventually. "If you're serious about this."

"I am, Sir!" Whatever this was. Did Levi always give presents with such a serious manner? Eren felt he should have dressed up for the occasion.

Levi walked to a chest in the corner of the room, and knelt to unlock it with a key from his pocket. Eren couldn't see what was inside, but he could hear him going through the contents methodically.

"When I was your age-" Levi stopped himself. "Well, here. You'll need this." He took a long cloth-wrapped bundle from the chest, and before Eren's startled eyes, he unwrapped it.

It was a blade. A sword over a foot long. It looked old; the grip was dark and smooth, and the blade was worn thin by years of sharpening. In the light of the setting sun the long, flat blade gleamed like it had been doused fresh blood. Levi balanced it on his palms, and let Eren look at the weapon.

It was a cruel thing. Levi's expression was no kinder, the light glowed red in his eyes, and painted his cheek the same colour. He looked like a demon, freshly risen from some bloody hell. Eren's heart was pounding, but from a reason different from the one before. This was what lay over the horizon, Levi was showing him.

"This blade is mine," Levi said. "But I have others. If you accept it, it is yours, Eren. You'll need it."

Eren stepped forward, raising his hands. He wrapped his fingers around the grip, and they fitted into the worn leather perfectly.

"Be careful," Levi said, as Eren lifted the blade off his hands. "It's very sharp." Eren could see that; it practically sang against the air as it moved it was so sharp. Its edge seemed to dominate the room, Eren couldn't take his eyes off it. He caught a glimpse of his own wide eye reflected in the blade as he lifted it up.

It was lighter than he'd expected. It sat in his hand like a bird of prey, a perfect instrument of death. Eager. It scared him, and he suspected it was meant to. It didn't seem right for someone like him to hold it, not in his battered sandshoes and salt-streaked shorts and messy hair. It was incongruous as thorns on a daisy. It suited Levi better.

Levi lowered his hands. Carefully, Eren looked along the length of the blade.

"So, what do you think?" Levi asked. "What does it tell you?"

"It feels like it's drawn a lot of blood."

"Yes. It has." I've drawn blood too, Levi was telling him.

"You're really going to give this to me?"

"I said I wouldn't didn't I? Or would you rather not accept it?"

The truth was Eren didn't want to accept it, this single-edged sword. He'd handled knives in the kitchen before, he'd even seen a fistfight on the docks grow ugly once, and saw the blades in men's fists before Carla scooped him up and carried him away. Those blades had a multitude of purposes, but this one existed for one reason only; to cause death, to spill blood and end lives.

He wished Levi hadn't shown him this. Something cold had settled in his stomach, some unhappy realisation about the world was taking root.

"You need to understand what it will mean to leave this place," Levi said. "What you will be forced to do to survive."

Eren bit his lip. He could turn back now. He could thank Levi for helping him understand. He could look away from the horizon. He wanted to. He wanted to go home; he knew his mother would be happy if he did, that Armin wouldn't mind another year or two of peace.

He shifted his grip on the sword slightly and bowed his head. "Thank you, Captain Levi." He managed a choked whisper. "I hope I prove myself worthy of your gift."

"Oh?" Levi raised his eyebrows. "I see, Eren. Very well." There was something new in Levi's eyes when he looked at Eren now; respect. He regarded him thoughtfully for a few moments. "Do you have anywhere else to be right now?"

"I have to go home for dinner at some point, although I don't think anyone is going to be very hungry. My parents know where I am."

"So you have some time?"

"Yes, Captain."

Levi walked back to the doorway, and pushed his coat aside to reveal a belt hanging from the same hook underneath, and from this belt hung a scabbard and holsters; Eren had seen him wearing it the first evening he'd arrived in Shiganshina. From the scabbard Levi drew a sword in one fluid movement. It was almost identical to the one in Eren's hand, maybe the grip a little less worn, and the way Levi held it it was like an extension of his own arm.

Eren's eyes widened.

"It won't do you any good to have a blade if you can't use it," Levi said. He inclined his head, and Eren followed him out, sneaking one last quick glance over his shoulder at where Levi lived. Just because he was curious, not because he needed a reference for future fantasies in which Levi relieved him of his virginity on that bed in the corner or anything like that.

The red leached out of the sky towards pale gold and blue, and the first few stars started to come out as Levi showed Eren how one moved with a sword. Eren forgot he was supposed to be observing with an eye to copying Levi's movements, he just sat on a barrel and stared, Levi's old- his new- sword across his knees.

Levi was fast; his blade was like a flame, burning through the defences of imaginary opponents. He was never still, never uncertain. His expression was utterly focused. At first he moved fast, as if to demonstrate how flexible the limits of what was possible for a man to do with a blade were. Then he slowed down deliberately, so Eren could see exactly how he was moving. He used every muscle with perfect control, like a striking snake.

When he stopped, Eren sighed with regret that it was over. Levi's hair hung across his eyes and his skin gleamed slightly with sweat.

"Your turn," he said.

Eren had almost forgotten about that. He held the sword gingerly and stood up.

"Come on," Levi beckoned him out to the centre of the quarterdeck. "Stand for me."

Eren did his best. Levi held his sword in his left hand, and stalked around Eren, observing him from every angle.

"Feet out more. Elbow down." He nudged Eren into place with his feet and right hand. Eren tried not to jump every time he felt Levi touch him. Levi walked around behind him and Eren yelped when he dug his fingers into his shoulder. "And don't tense up so much. You need to be able to react flexibly to changing circumstances on the battlefield."

"Yes, Sir!"

"Don't try and be fast. Take your time and get the movements right." He walked around to where Eren could see him. "Forward, out." He demonstrated.

"Hang on," Eren said. "You used your left hand."

"Just start with your right one for now."

Eren did as he was bid. Step forward, slash. The blade sang through the air. He kept repeating the movement, Levi occasionally correcting him.

"Try this one. To the side, yes."

When the last of the light left the sky, Levi called a halt. It was harder work than it looked; even though Eren hadn't been putting a lot of force into it, his arm was getting tired.

"How did I do, Captain Levi?" Eren asked, almost afraid of the answer.

"Not bad," Levi replied. "You're a natural." His tone of voice didn't suggest it was really a compliment, and Eren felt a bit unsettled. "We'll do this again, if you want. In the meantime, hand back your blade."

Eren was surprised but did as Levi asked.

"It's yours, if you can earn it," Levi explained. "But it stays on the _Freedom _in the meantime. Things like this," he held it up and admired the edge. "Do not belong in Shiganshina."

Eren looked at Levi, at his blades and his horizon eyes and his carefully-guarded walls. "You don't think you belong in Shiganshina either, do you Sir?"

Levi didn't look offended, or even surprised. "Of course I don't. I should have thought that was obvious, Eren."

"But, why not? Even for just a day or two you could enjoy the peace and relax. I don't understand."

He was arguing back, but Levi still didn't react angrily. He just looked a bit sad. "I don't belong. If you manage to make it over the horizon, you won't belong either. Things will change; you will change."

"Why do you do it if you have to sacrifice so much?" Eren asked.

"Because it is required of me. Why are you so intent on following in my footsteps?"

"Because." Because.

"Think about it," Levi said. "And go home for dinner before your parents come looking for you."

"Yes, Captain."

Levi walked back into the ship. He paused at the doorway. "Eren, did you have a good birthday?"

Eren was halfway down the gangway and he stopped. "Yes, Captain. I enjoyed it."

"Good." He walked inside and shut the door.

Eren went home. They had leftovers for dinner; sandwiches and cold chicken and apple pie and cream. No one felt like eating a lot. Eren didn't tell anyone about Levi's gift; his parents would just worry, and Mikasa would probably immediately go and see about getting one for herself. Of course, she'd need one eventually if she was coming with him, but for now he wanted to keep this between him and Levi.

And when he finally got around to doing his homework, the questions written out in Mikasa's neat handwriting, he knew that Levi had been right. Those hungry blades had no place here. He couldn't even visualise them in the room. Every time he tried they just slipped away unreal and unsettling, like a thunderstorm so distant there's only lightning, no thunder.

But when he'd held it in his hand, the hand now curled around a blunt pencil, it had been more real than anything else he'd ever encountered. He'd held the ends of lives in his fingers.

_You're a natural._

He frowned.

He went to bed and it took him a long time to get to sleep, his head full of red sunlight and steel and Levi's hands adjusting his arms.

The next day drifted by. School, then down to the docks. The _Freedom's _hull had been rebuilt and it was time to paint it with a horrible mixture of tar and sulphur which was designed to deter the barnacles from regrowing on her, at least for a few more years. Her sails had been mended, and Mikasa Armin and Eren were sent aloft to learn how they were set.

When they got out of school there had been some discussion among the others as to whether they'd go and see if their help was required as well, but eventually they decided against it. Eren had watched them go to the beach with a mixture of relief and regret. It would have been nice to spend a bit more time with them. Time, as he found himself thinking more and more often, was running out.

The crew was patient with them, as they pulled on the wrong ropes, or looped something through a part of the rigging it shouldn't have been. Levi didn't help this time. He sat at the workbench with a compass and ruler, looking over the maps. Eren knew he was finally planning his getaway, plotting the _Freedom's_ course over the horizon and into the unknown.

Oluo, of all people, climbed a ladder and started painting the figurehead, a paint-stained smock over his uniform and his tongue sticking out the corner of his mouth in concentration.

When work was done for the day, and they were packing up to go home, Levi merely said, "Eren. A while longer."

Mikasa looked at him and Eren shrugged, "I'll be back for dinner."

Levi waited until everyone else had gone, and then Eren followed him silently onto the quarterdeck. Levi produced some crude approximations of their swords, made out of wood, and tossed one to Eren. He must have got one of Pixis's assistants to make them in the workshop.

"Right, Eren," he said. "Defend yourself."

At first Eren was terrified. He'd seen what Levi could do with a blade, and he knew how strong he was. He practically ran away from him, desperately trying to parry Levi's sword with his own. But Levi didn't hurt him. Such was his control that when he got past Eren's guard all he did was tap him lightly with a faintly amused air as Eren flinched.

Eren gained confidence, eventually retaliating.

"Remember how you stood yesterday," Levi reminded him. "Distribute your weight."

Crack! Their swords clacked against each other.

"Better," Levi commented. "But you're still over-thinking it, try and relax."

How the hell could he relax like this? And yet, he sort of did, once he forgot what he was doing, and just moved. Levi was right; he _was_ a natural. He didn't think Levi was attacking as fast as he was capable of, but Eren was still surprised when he managed to slide past Levi's guard.

When he did so, Levi stuck his foot out and tripped him.

"Hey!" Eren objected, as he crashed into the deck.

"Don't assume your opponent is going to play fair," Levi said as Eren picked himself up off the ground.

Eren took a deep breath. Okay. This time.

It wasn't the next time. He'd hit some sort of plateau; no matter how much faster he tried to be, he couldn't seem to catch Levi off guard. He stopped feeling pleased with his progress, and instead he felt himself getting frustrated. He redoubled his efforts to channel his emotions into being precise, calculated, like Levi was.

It didn't work. His sword thwacked into the railing as Levi stepped out the way again.

Eren bunched his fists and gritted his teeth and growled. This was hopeless.

"Aargh!" He spun and ran at Levi, swinging his stick. Levi ducked, his expression unchanging as he stepped neatly out of Eren's way. Eren didn't think. Pure instinct fuelled a lightning fast backhand, and he cracked Levi across the back of the neck.

He felt the impact, and when he realised what it meant he stopped breathing. Levi staggered forward with a grunt of pain, and then whipped around. Eren stopped, nearly cross-eyed as he stared at the end of Levi's improvised weapon, aimed neatly between his eyes.

"I'm so sorry!" He flinched, and closed his eyes expecting some sort of painful retaliation. When nothing happened he opened them again in time to see Levi toss the sword aside and wince as he rubbed the back of his neck.

"Well done," he said.

Eren looked at his hand. "I don't know how I did that, exactly. I just-"

"Reacted. You've got good instincts when you don't try and think too hard." He looked up at the evening sky, "It's probably time to stop for now."

"That sounded like it hurt, I'm sorry, Captain Levi."

Levi shrugged. "Well, you're definitely going to leave a mark, but it's not like I haven't had worse."

"You've done a lot of fighting, Captain." It was obvious.

"Yes. More than most."

"I didn't realise it was so dangerous on the _Freedom_."

"It is," Levi inclined his head and Eren followed him to the prow. They were above the edge of the drydock and they looked out at the sea beyond. "But I've been fighting a lot longer than that."

"Erwin didn't recruit you from a trader?" Eren asked softly, hoping this was okay, that Levi would keep talking. As Levi looked out at the horizon, Eren snuck a glance at Levi, at the reddened skin on the back of his neck below his hair. Eren was sorry he'd caused him pain, but part of him was happy to have made a mark as well.

He wanted to soothe the hurt. Press his lips against it lightly. Be forgiven.

Levi smiled, very faintly. "Erwin recruited me all right, but not from a trader." He leaned his elbows on the railing. "When I was younger, I did things that I am not proud of and they weren't always justified by the need to survive. Oh, that's how we started, my friends and I. We had little choice."

"Friends?"

"They're dead now." Levi was silent for a while. "Anyway, Erwin Smith didn't give us a lot of choice either, once he caught up with us."

Levi continued to talk as more stars came out above them, and the moon rose above its rippling twin in the ocean. Eren didn't say much, as he felt if he made too much noise Levi might notice he was there anew and send him away again before his stories were told.

"You were a pirate, weren't you, Captain Levi?" Eren asked eventually, when Levi fell silent.

It was getting too dark to see clearly, but he sensed Levi looking at him, "Does that surprise you, Eren?"

Eren thought about it for a little while. The way Levi divided himself from everyone else, from the lawful and peaceful people of Shiganshina, and even the rest of his crew. The way he seemed to give life to the blades he held in his hands, the way he was always on his guard.

"Yes," Eren decided. "It does surprise me." The way Levi held his hands to bandage his skinned knuckles. The way he'd caught him when he'd slipped in the rigging. The way he said it was all right if Eren wanted to change his mind, if he'd rather stay behind where it was safe and peaceful. "I can't imagine you hurting people."

"Oh, I still hurt people," Levi said darkly. "The only difference now is that I hurt people for a higher purpose other than my own satisfaction and survival." Eren bowed his head, and frowned. "You don't believe I'll hurt you?" Levi asked.

"No, Captain."

"I will," he said. "I'll cause you more pain that you can possibly imagine. Is it all right if I do that to you, Eren?"

"I. I don't know. What do you mean?"

He heard Levi exhale. "I keep sending you home with questions you can't answer, don't I?" That rang a bell. "Go home, Eren. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Yes, Captain. Thank you for the lesson today. And, and for telling me about yourself. I really just-"

"Go, Eren."

He went.


	7. Chapter 7

He walked home slowly, his head full of Levi's past. He felt that maybe they were getting closer, that Levi shared parts of himself with Eren that he shared with no one else. But he never looked happy about it, and when he said he was going to cause Eren pain Eren felt that he meant it. He just had to hope that Levi underestimated him, that he was made of stronger stuff.

He had to be made of stronger stuff. He wanted to stand beside him on the prow of the _Freedom_ again, but under full sail for the horizon.

I can do it, Captain. I'll answer your question. It's all right, no matter what you do to me I'll make myself someone you can be proud of. He made these vows silently, his head down as he walked home, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides as he thought it through.

He was scared. Levi had done his best to scare him, and it had worked.

Part of him did want to stay in Shiganshina, to go to school and fool about and content himself with dreaming out the window when the weather was nice. He could almost make himself believe he'd be happy if he did that, but every time he visualised the _Freedom_ sailing away, her green flag snapping in the breeze, her figurehead leaping over the waves and her keel gliding out past the breakwater he knew he couldn't let that happen. He couldn't wake up in the mornings and face a day where he wouldn't see Captain Levi or hear his voice.

It would be better to die than to fail in this. What other purpose would he have in life? How could he face himself in the mirror in the mornings if he just gave up?

He was monosyllabic at dinner. He did his homework because he didn't have anything better to do with his time. He paced around his room like a caged animal, swinging an imaginary sword.

All Levi's old friends are dead.

Eren couldn't imagine it. No wonder he didn't feel like making any new ones. He had to do something, had to.

Eventually he had to go to bed.

School. Docks. He barely noticed the day go by. The hull was nearly finished. Oluo had done a beautiful job on the figurehead. Levi wasn't there. Another day passed. Eren practised sword fighting in his room with a wooden ruler.

"When are you leaving? I mean, when are we leaving?" Eren asked Hange. The painting was done, and they were just waiting for it to dry. There'd been no work for them that afternoon.

"Day after tomorrow," they said cheerfully. "Just have to get her out of drydock, and then load up with supplies."

What? How did this happen so fast? He thought he had a few more days. He felt like the air had been knocked out of his lungs.

"Where's Captain Levi?"

"Making arrangements with Erwin, probably. What's wrong, Eren?" Hange cocked their head to the side sympathetically.

"Hange, do you know if Captain Levi thinks I'm ready to leave with you?"

"Hm, I'm not sure. You know what he's like; he never shares what he's thinking most of the time. I think he likes you though, because I don't think he's ever had an apprentice before, and he's always making time to show you things."

"Yeah?" Eren was happy about this, but at the same time he knew Levi would act in what he thought were his best interests, and if that meant leaving him behind, he'd do so and he wouldn't look back.

"I'm sure it will be fine," Hange said. "And if it's not, you can always beg on your knees."

"Do you think that will work?"

"I don't know. I've never seen anyone do it before, which means it might be worth a try."

Eren wasn't convinced, but if he ran out of other options, what else was he going to do? He thanked Hange joined Armin and Mikasa for the walk home.

"The day after tomorrow," Eren said. "Where'd the time go?"

"What do you think our chances are?" Mikasa asked.

They looked at Armin; if anyone would know it would be him. "To be honest," Armin rubbed the back of his neck. "It feels like they like having us around, but that we're just visiting. We're probably too young, Eren."

"I refuse to accept that!" Eren shouted. He lowered his voice as people turned to look at them. "Captain Levi has-" Taught me so much. Moved the ground under my feet. Looked me in the eye. Caught me when I was about to fall. Stowed my heart away somewhere in that big grey coat of his and I don't know how to get it back and I don't want to. "Hasn't said anything either way yet. We can ask him tomorrow. Go down on our knees and beg if we have to."

"I'm not begging," Mikasa said. "You can if you must."

"Let's not panic until we see what he says," Armin said, sensible as always. "I'm going home now, I want to spend some time with my grandfather in case Captain Levi does agree to sign us on."

Armin's comment was like a slap in the face. Eren had been so focused on leaving that he hadn't actually considered the ins and outs of saying goodbye. Maybe this was what Levi meant by not being ready, not thinking things through.

"Yeah, we should do the same, shouldn't we?"

Mikasa nodded.

They went home while the sun was still in the sky. Carla was surprised to see them home so early.

"Let's take you out," Eren suggested. "Somewhere nice for afternoon tea."

Carla looked at them for a few moments, a little bit sadly, and then she put away the broom she'd been holding. "Let me get my hat," she said.

They walked either side of her, holding her hands like they had when they were smaller as they strolled into town. They had enough pocket money saved to take her to a cafe that overlooked the harbour. She had to know why they were doing this, but she played along, laughing at their jokes, and assuring them that she was having a wonderful time while they plied her with tea and sandwiches.

Eren wanted to wrap his arms around her and promise he'd come back, but he knew Levi wouldn't approve of promises he didn't know he could keep. So in the end he said nothing. He trusted that she understood, however. They walked her home, and helped her make dinner.

That evening, Eren went up to his room and opened his cupboard and started packing. He unearthed his winter clothes and crammed everything he thought he'd need somewhat haphazardly into a canvas bag. It didn't look like much, but he wouldn't need the pictures of ships stuck to his wall, or his schoolbooks, or his old toys. He'd grown out of them.

When he caught Mikasa's eye later, he knew she'd been doing the same thing.

"Did you even try?" Shadis asked, standing over Eren the next day his hands full of marked homework.

"No Sir," Eren said truthfully.

Shadis narrowed his eyes and stalked on, but Eren didn't care what he was planning. He was leaving this place, and Shadis had no more power over him now. He was so nervous he felt sick; he'd barely been able to eat all day. Tomorrow they'd leave.

Levi depending.

Eren got extra homework that afternoon. He made a show of writing it down. When Shadis dismissed them, Eren looked around the noisy classroom, trying to imprint this memory firmly in his mind. Once he went over the horizon, he would change, and this would never be the same. When he came back his friends would have aged without him, and he without them.

By now they were used to Eren, Mikasa and Armin doing their own thing after school, and they got nothing more but some half-hearted waves as the two groups split up. Eren watched them go.

The _Freedom_ was on the water. She was moored by the pier, and dock workers were loading her up with barrels and boxes of supplies for the voyage ahead. There was no sign of the crew, and Eren supposed they were making the most of their last day ashore.

"She looks lovely," Armin said, as they came to a halt next to her, keeping out of the way of the workers and gazing up at the _Freedom's_ fresh, clean paint. Her flag was flying, although her sails were still furled. She was like a fine horse waiting for the stall door to open, to be allowed to run the way she'd been born to do.

Eren had forgotten. He'd seen her in drydock for so long, he'd forgotten how she sat in the water, how she held herself proudly above the waves. How she moved in the gentle swell to the faint creaking of rope. How she made his heart ache with promises of beyond the horizon.

"There's the captain," Mikasa said.

Levi was on deck, watching the goods being carried below with a critical eye.

"Captain Levi," Eren called. "Permission to come aboard, Sir?"

Levi glanced at them and nodded.

Once they were on board they approached Levi and stood to attention.

"Captain Levi, we are prepared to sail with the _Freedom _tomorrow, Sir."

"Oh."

"We've said our goodbyes and packed our bags," Eren said, meeting his eyes boldly. "We're ready."

Levi looked at them for one long moment.

"No you're not."

It was like he'd been punched in the gut.

"What?" he wasn't sure he'd heard correctly. He'd managed to convince himself that everything would work out. It _had_ to.

"You heard me," Levi said in a harder tone. "You're not ready to leave. I will not hear any arguments about this, Eren." He raised his voice as Eren leaned forward, drawing breath to shout, forestalling his angry response.

Eren felt like he was going to cry, but he refused to do so in front of Levi. That would just confirm his decision.

"I'll be back, Eren," Levi said, more softly. "Someday."

"You don't know that," Eren said. "You can't promise that." He met his eyes again. "You said yourself it's dangerous. You could _die _out there!" And if that happened, part of Eren would die too, he was sure of it. "I can't just sit here and wait for months on end not knowing what happened to you." Levi regarded him solemnly. "And if I'm here I'm no use in preventing that."

"You think you could protect me?" Levi asked. "Do you think you'd make the difference between my death and survival?'

"Yes!"

"Well, you're wrong," Levi said. "I'd be looking after you, constantly." He shook his head. "That's enough Eren. I'm not going to discuss it further with any of you. Get off my ship."

Levi turned and stalked back across the quarterdeck. Mikasa and Armin turned to go.

"Come on, Eren," Mikasa said, pulling on his arm. He let himself be pulled, miserably. He barely noticed the seagulls or the afternoon breeze, or noise from the dock workers. All he could hear was his own harsh breathing in his ears.

Stupid, stupid kid.

They were halfway down the gangplank when Eren stopped.

"No."

"Eren, he told us not to argue," Armin said.

"I don't care." He pulled his arm free of Mikasa's grip and ran back on board. The others didn't follow.

He heard a door close. Levi must have gone below deck, back to his quarters. Eren ran after him, crossed the quarterdeck and wrenched the door open.

"Levi!"

"Eren, I told you-"

Eren had no words that would work, no arguments that would convince him. All he had was his will and courage, and endless stupidity. This was all wrong, and he didn't know how to make it right but he couldn't _wouldn't_ let Levi go. He had to make him understand, even if it killed him.

Levi was only a few steps away from the door where Eren had burst through it, and Eren closed the gap in seconds.

He flung his arms around Levi's shoulders, took a deep breath, and kissed him. Levi stiffened, his eyes open wide in sheer shock as Eren angled his mouth across Levi's lips. He felt Levi's mouth twitch slightly. Eren shut his eyes, uncertain as to what to do next, moving his lips experimentally against Levi's non-responsive ones.

This was probably the dumbest thing he'd ever done, but he just felt so desperate. If he didn't do something, anything, Levi would leave him behind.

Levi didn't move. Eren could feel his breath against his skin but otherwise he stayed completely still. In the absence of being shoved aside, Eren grew bolder, flicking the tip of his tongue across Levi's bottom lip. He tasted faintly of salt.

And still Levi didn't move. Eren risked opening an eye, starting to feel silly. Levi was glaring at him – no, that was too mild a word. Eren didn't know what sort of expression he was wearing but the term 'livid with rage' came to mind.

Eren pulled back. As soon as he loosened his grip, Levi grabbed a fistful of his shirt and slammed him back into a wall.

"What," he grated out, his upper lip curled. "Was that in aid of?" Eren could see his teeth gleaming between bloodless lips. His eyes were as sharp and cruel as his blades.

"I." Eren licked his lips. "I couldn't just let you leave. This is how I feel, Captain Levi-" He nearly bit his tongue when Levi pulled him forward far enough to shove him back against the wall again. Levi ground his shoulder blades and vertebra into the wall, and his knuckles dug painfully into his ribs.

"How dare you?" Levi said softly. "When you haven't even answered my _fucking question,_" he snarled. "You didn't even listen, you just ran away and hid like a frightened child. And you think you're ready to leave. You haven't even started getting ready."

"Levi, I'm sorry." He wasn't even sure what he was apologising for, but whatever it was, he was so very, very sorry. "What was the question? I'll listen, I'll promise."

With Eren's shirt still wound around his fist, Levi dragged him back out into the sunlight, Eren stumbling after him with his collar tight against the back of his neck.

Mikasa and Armin were on the docks, watching and waiting for him with expressions that didn't grow any less worried when they saw Levi hauling him out. Levi frog-marched him across the deck to the gangplank and then pulled him close, so he could hiss into Eren's ear.

"_Where's Annie?"_

A sound like breaking glass.

Then he gave Eren a vicious shove that sent him staggering down the gangplank and almost tumbling off the side into the bay. Mikasa ran forward to steady him, glaring over Eren's shoulder at Levi.

"Eren, are you all right? He didn't have to do that."

"He did." Eren looked over his shoulder, but Levi was already walking away. He felt hollow, gutted.

What did Annie matter? Who cared?

Everything had gone wrong. He let Mikasa steer him home. He let his mind fall blank as he looked around at Shiganshina, as quiet and peaceful as always. He loved this place, he did, but he realised now it was not with all his heart.

Levi might never come back. He might die out there and Eren would never see him again.

Carla saw the expressions on their faces when they arrived home and she wrapped one arm around each of them, holding her children close.

"It's all right, Eren," she said, pressing a kiss to his forehead. "You'll get another chance someday. I know you did your very best, and I'm proud of you. Both of you."

Eren just wanted to go up to his room and hide, so he did. He closed the door behind him, his gaze falling on the canvas bag of clothes by the foot of his bed.

He nearly tripped over it as he strode across the room and flopped face down in the blankets, sniffling slightly. He'd kissed Levi, and Levi hadn't even cared. He hadn't even acknowledged Eren's feelings at all. He'd just been angry at his space being invaded. Maybe that was all Eren was to him, an invasion of his space. If that was the case, why would he want to be on his ship anyway? What was the point?

Eren started sorting miserably through the memories of the last couple of weeks.

_You'll come with us._

_This blade is mine, but I have others. If you accept it, it is yours, Eren._

_Where's Annie?_

Fuck you. Eren gritted his teeth and refused to cry and eventually fell asleep just to escape his endlessly churning thoughts, while outside the sun sank to the tolling of ship's bells out in the harbour.

When he woke up it was dark. There wasn't even any light coming from under his door, which meant it had to be pretty late. He sat up in bed and rubbed his eyes, feeling dopey and slow. He was thirsty and he felt his way downstairs to get a drink from the kitchen.

On the kitchen table he found a dish covered in a cloth, and when he peered underneath he saw a slab of shepard's pie and some vegetables. He realised he was hungry too. The leftovers were stone cold but Eren couldn't be bothered lighting the stove and warming them up. After gulping down a couple of mugs of water he lit a lamp, and ate alone in the quiet of the night.

He had to do something, he had to think of a plan. The _Freedom_ left tomorrow, and then it would all be too late. He had to be on board-

He put down his fork, his eyes widening as his brain finally kicked into gear.

Once they were out at sea, Levi wouldn't turn around for anything, he was certain of it. If he was already on board, they'd just have to cope. It was so obvious, he wondered why he hadn't thought of it earlier; he'd just become a stowaway.

He breathed a sigh of relief. He'd come up with the answer in time. Just. He went back upstairs and knocked softly on Mikasa's door, so softly that it took him a while to wake her up.

"Eren?" she said sleepily, peering through the crack. "Isn't it the middle of the night?"

"I've got a plan. We have to stowaway on board the _Freedom_ before she leaves tomorrow."

"Are you serious?" She rubbed her face. "You are, of course you are."

"Are you already packed?"

"Yeah."

"Good. I'm going to go and tell Armin. Get back to sleep, but we have to leave early."

"Are you sure this is a good idea, Eren?"

"We don't have any choice; it's the only chance we have left. Good or bad doesn't come into it."

"All right."

Armin didn't respond when Eren threw stones at his window, so he climbed up to wake his friend personally. Armin shrieked and jolted awake when Eren shook his shoulder. Eren told him not to sleep in, and Armin said he'd be there. He didn't look very happy about being woken up, and Eren got the impression he agreed just so he could go back to sleep again.

Eren went home but he could barely sleep. He forced himself to lie there, tossing and turning, waiting for the sky to start getting light.

Eren and Mikasa packed some food as the morning light started filtering in to the kitchen. They didn't know how long they'd be down in the hold, and it seemed wise to bring some supplies. They took one last look around their childhood home, and tiptoed out, their packs on their backs. Even Grisha didn't get up this early.

"It's a shame to leave like this," Mikasa said, looking back over her shoulder at the house.

"Maybe." But it made it easier too. Eren didn't feel like crying and he didn't have to stumble over painful goodbyes. The fishing fleet would be coming in soon with the morning catch, and there were plenty of people and cats waiting for them down by the docks. Armin was there before them, sitting on his pack and trying to look awake.

Some of the _Freedom's _sails were unfurled, Eren could see them over the last row of buildings before the docks. It looked like she was going to leave soon.

Eren was wrong.

When they hurried out onto the docks, Eren realised the _Freedom_ was already moving, sliding away from the pier into the rising sun.

"No," Eren moaned. He stumbled. _Shit_.

Even if he ran to the end of the pier and jumped, the _Freedom _was already too far away. He gritted his teeth and pressed his palms to his eyes.

"I'm sorry, Eren," Armin said, putting a hand on his back. "Maybe next time."

"No," he croaked. He lifted his head. "No. There's still one last chance." Levi didn't think he was prepared to sacrifice enough. He'd prove Levi wrong. Eren got to his feet and shrugged off his pack.

"Eren, what are you doing?" Mikasa asked.

"I'm going to see what's over the horizon," he said. He didn't have time to think, let alone explain or argue. He hoped the others would follow, but he couldn't afford to wait and make sure. He ran.

He didn't run along the pier, he knew that would be hopeless and as safe and dramatic a gesture as that would be, Eren knew it wouldn't fool Levi. So he ran along the arm of the bay, past the shipyards and the fish markets. The sun threw his shadow nearly twenty feet away.

He ran faster than he had ever run before.

The _Freedom_ was making her way towards the mouth of the harbour, past the breakwater. She was moving slowly, letting the smaller fishing boats move around her, the bow wave feet below the figurehead's hooves. Eren turned his head to glance at her occasionally, but mostly he concentrated on speed, his gaze fixed on the ground in front of him.

The cool morning air gave him energy and dried the sweat on his forehead and temples. His breath rasped in his throat and he prayed he wouldn't get a stitch. He ran along the side of the bay, his legs aching. He was pulling ahead of the _Freedom,_ just.

I will leave this place, I swear.

When he reached the breakwater, he barely slowed down. Despite the danger of slipping he bounded from one rock to the next, scrambling for balance, the spray stinging his eyes. He watched as the _Freedom_ started to slide past the end of the breakwater, agonisingly slowly and far too fast. Once she was out of harbour, she'd be gone.

Eren tried to yell but he had no breath, no voice for it. All he could do was run. He could see the details on the side of the ship. He could count the canons. He could see the crew hauling on ropes. He could see Captain Levi at the wheel, staring ahead into the sunlit sea.

He was so close.

When he reached the end of the breakwater, he didn't hesitate, he leaped.

The water was like a blow from all directions, cold and deep as it closed over his head. Eren struck out for the surface, kicking hard. He spat out a mouthful of water, blinking, where was the _Freedom?_

She was right there. He snorted water out of his nose after a swell sent his head under again and then he started striking out, beyond the breakwater. If he could just cling on, or get close enough for them to hear him, it would be okay.

He could hear the shouts of the crew and the wind humming in the rigging.

He was so tired. His muscles protested and he gasped for breath, but he refused to turn around and go back to the breakwater. He thrashed, and his head went under the water again, and he caught a glimpse of the endless dark blue beneath his feet.

He felt cold fear clutch at him, but he forced himself onwards. The current tugged him down and the surface looked far away. He found himself fighting against the urge to fill his lungs again, sealing his mouth tight against the water. He kicked upwards, his legs tired from running. He was just a piece of nothing in the endless blue, all his energy going into reaching the surface again. He tried not to think about what was beneath him. He didn't know where the _Freedom_ was. He just needed to breathe.

Levi, please, find me.

He was running out of reserves. His brain was screaming at him that he needed air. Everything ached.

The surface! He gasped for breath and a wave rolled right over him, and water poured into his lungs and he coughed and that made it worse. Salt stung his throat and sinuses. He flailed a hand above the water, hoping that someone would see him.

He couldn't keep himself up any longer. The darkness below him seemed to be reaching up for him, cold water pulling him down.

He was going to die for this, he realised, to leave this behind. He was so cold, and so tired. He paddled weakly in the water, still chasing the _Freedom, _still wanting to see beyond the horizon. He was never, ever going to give up. He felt his grip on conciousness slipping.

A sound like breaking glass.

A sound like breaking glass.

A sound like breaking a heart.

Eren opened his eyes.

He gasped, finally filling his disused lungs with air.

"Eren!" Corporal Levi leaned over him, deep shadows under his eyes and his face pale in the lantern-light. Everything smelled musty.

It picked her up, pulled her out of the ruins of their home in its enormous hands. She struggled, her arms pushing uselessly against its fingers, and it took her in both hands and snapped-

Snapped her back. And then it lifted her up and dropped her into its mouth and he saw those teeth close over her broken body and her blood flew in the dirty air. Right before his eyes.

His mother was dead.

So many people were dead. He'd never seen the ocean.

Eren threw his head back and _wailed_.


	8. Chapter 8 - Levi

Levi had learned long ago not to blame himself for making the wrong decision; he knew that you could only choose what you thought was the best course of action, and you could never know in advance how it would turn out in the end. No one did; to dwell on it was pointless.

Bad decisions, even ones that ended in death and torn limbs, could be forgiven.

He had a harder time dealing with a failure of skill or speed. It was something he rarely faced, for one thing. But when he'd leaped up onto Eren's neck to cut him loose, he'd known moments later that he'd been too slow. Maybe he'd held off too long, maybe it was his twisted ankle. Maybe it was sheer bad luck. It didn't matter, and he still held himself partially responsible for what happened.

"Don't eat a valuable witness," he said, as he sliced Eren free.

Eren flopped back into his arms, and Levi heaved him loose from the titan corpse. As he did so, he saw Eren's hands were coated in a layer of glittering crystal.

By the time he'd got him down to the ground to where Mikasa and Armin were waiting, the hard shell was creeping over his shoulders, and Levi could feel Eren's body solidifying, inch by inch as the crystal crept across his skin and didn't stop.

"Hange!" he shouted. He didn't want to leave Eren, but this was not his area of expertise and he couldn't stay. He cast one last look at Eren's face, his eyes shut and his skin streaked with red, before leaving him with his friends. He held Jean back from stabbing at Annie's crystal. He didn't understand any of this, but he knew things had probably, once again, gone entirely to shit. Even Annie's corpse would have told them more than this rock; corpses could be dissected at least.

When he saw Eren again he was a statue, and Levi knew the true cost of being seconds too slow.

Armin and Mikasa shouted at him, trying to wake him up.

He didn't wake up. Levi had a lot of things to do, and he left Eren in Hange's hands until he'd done them. Annie was secured underground, and Eren was taken back to his dungeon at HQ. Levi rode next to the cart as they left the capital. They'd covered him in a cloth because Erwin wanted to keep it quiet for now that Humanity's Hope was no longer conscious. Wrapped up and in the back of a cart, Eren was indistinguishable from a corpse. Mikasa sat in the cart with him, holding his hand through the canvas.

They unwrapped him and carried him downstairs, and took his boots and harness off and put him in his bed, but he didn't look anything like a human any more, no matter how they tried to treat him as one.

He was beautiful, in a way, but he no longer looked like Eren, either. Levi had to hold the lantern close and peer through the crystal to see Eren's face. Once he stepped back away it was lost under the gleaming shell and it could have been anyone in there.

Levi had never expected this.

Truthfully, Levi had expected Eren to die, sooner or later. He was burning so brightly, too brightly for a long and happy old age, and Levi expected he'd breathe his last bellowing with rage on the battlefield, his eyes alight. Not like this. Cold and hard and asleep rather than truly dead.

But just as good as.

They tried everything they could think of; temperature changes, acids, grindstones. They found a jeweller from the capital whom Erwin swore (and paid) to secrecy, and she tried to find a fault line, a weak point in the crystal, a starting point where they might be able to cut Eren free like a gemstone. After a week of bending over Eren with a magnifying glass and a strong light, she had to admit defeat.

She cried when she left, and apologised over and over. Humanity's Hope was starting to look hopeless.

They tried to break him out from the inside, too. At first, Mikasa and Armin had to be ordered out of Eren's room so they could sleep and eat, and even then Armin suggested they move in with him.

Visiting Eren became the hobby of everyone in HQ. Once their jobs were done, every time someone had a spare minute, they'd drop down to the dungeon and talk to Eren. Jean would shout insults until he was hoarse and then storm up stairs in a foul mood to find a spot to hide his head in his hands. Sasha would tell him in detail what they were going to have for dinner. Armin raided the library for books, and read him pages and pages of stories about the ocean, about how humans once sailed upon it, begging him to remember his dream.

Mikasa called his name and held his hand.

Levi ordered him to get up and get moving. He don't know what Erwin said, but it was just as effective as everything else, which was not very.

It was a quiet, long-running disaster, and both Levi and Erwin knew it. It sapped morale, it put plans on hold, it left Eren's friends emotionally exhausting themselves day in and day out, and for everyone else it was a gradual slide into hopelessness. Levi thought it would have been better if they'd declared him dead. The Survey Corps had mourned enough people over the years that they had it down to a fine art. They could start moving on. They had to; the Capital and the titans weren't going to wait indefinitely for Eren to wake up.

Levi was overruled, but privately he tried to bury Eren as best he could. He kept himself busy, rather than visit him, and he tried to distract the others as best he could with drills and training. As always he had to be the eye of storm; calm and unaffected, to back off when people needed it, and to bully them if that was what it would take to get them through the day. He exhausted them. That was the easy part. The hard part was exhausting himself, and it didn't always work out.

One evening, weeks after they'd lost Eren, he'd run out of paperwork and he decided to make himself tea. It was a more appealing prospect than going to bed, even though it was quite late. He knew he wouldn't get to sleep. He took a lantern and made his way downstairs as all the lamps had been snuffed at curfew. Everyone else was asleep, and HQ was quiet and peaceful. Levi rather liked these times, where he could wander unobserved at will and just think things through. Or not think at all, but allow himself to lower his guard a bit.

He managed to coax the charcoal in the stove into a flame again, and when he had his cup of tea he found himself wandering down towards the dungeon. He'd never looked in on Eren when he'd been alive- awake- _there, _unless he had some specific reason to see him. He let Eren have his privacy.

He didn't need it any more.

More chairs had been moved into Eren's room, and Levi dropped into one, placing his lantern on the bedside table, and cradling his cup in his hands. Eren sparkled. But not as much as he should have.

Levi leaned forward, looking at Eren more closely.

"I swear those brats would live in a garbage pile if no one told them better," he muttered. Eren was starting to collect dust. Levi put down his cup and buried his head in his hand. "Fine. If I must."

He intended to smack Eren around a bit with a duster in the vague hope that it might make him feel better, but in the end he dampened a cloth and wiped his face and hands like one would a feverish child and not an object. The dust had settled in the corners of Eren's eyes and in the curves of his ears, in the hollows of his collarbones and between his frozen lips and Levi cleaned them all, methodically and gently, even though they'd yet to find anything that could damage the crystal.

Levi had never spent so much time staring directly at Eren's features before. It was too hard to look past his eyes most of the time. It was strange to see his face so still; even when he slept he moved. It didn't suit him, this handsome death mask.

By the time Levi was satisfied, Eren sparkled brightly again and his tea was cold.

"Probably the cleanest you've been in years," he muttered under his breath. He frowned. He hadn't intended to address Eren directly. He was dead. Levi tried not to talk to the dead; there were too many of them, and he didn't want them to start talking back. He didn't think he'd like what they'd say.

He slumped back in his chair. It was too fucking late and he was too fucking tired for this shit.

"I don't know why I came down here. What the fuck am I supposed to say? What are you waiting for?" No matter how much he tried, realised he hadn't quite managed to convince himself that Eren was gone. When he made the walk down to his dungeon, part of him had hoped he'd already be awake, had expected it even.

"I'm sorry," he said. He looked at Eren's frozen face. "That I was too slow to prevent this. This is my fault as well as yours." They weren't the magic words, and they sank into the stonework without a trace. Levi collected all evidence that he'd even been there and went upstairs to wring out the cloth and wash his teacup.

What a waste of time.

He went back two nights later. He didn't say anything, he just sat in the chair next to Eren's bed and thought.

"You seem pretty peaceful in there," he said the next night. "I wouldn't entirely blame you if you wanted to stay in there forever." His friends had begged him to come back; if their words couldn't reach him, Levi's wouldn't. Besides, it struck him as disrespectful to be anything but honest at this point.

"I wonder if I'm envious," he mused. He left it at that.

Levi started taking paperwork down with him. He didn't feel obligated to talk at Eren all the time, he just sat and worked and occasionally commented on how expensive it was to feed everyone. He was just being polite, really. Eventually he grew tired of pretending Eren was alive and avoided visiting him for a week.

Eren's birthday was coming up. He was turning sixteen. Levi was sick of hearing about it; the squad were divided on whether to hold a party on the day or wait for Eren to wake up and hold it then, because no one was game to state the fucking obvious, which was that Eren clearly wasn't going to wake up. Not in time for his birthday, and probably not ever.

It was pissing him off. He tried to keep his emotions out of it, but some of his subordinates were too clever by half, Armin especially, and he knew they were walking on eggshells around him. And that pissed him off more. He woke up with gritted teeth sometimes.

They compromised. Those who wanted to give Eren gifts would do so, but no one had the heart to organise a celebration around his crystallised body. Levi told them he frankly didn't care what they did, but he wasn't giving them any time off that day.

It was a horrible day. Eren was in the air they breathed, the echo to every word they spoke and the topic of the gaps between them. Levi had to order Mikasa to stand down eventually, as she was going to do herself an injury with the way she flung herself at her training. He kept walking in on people on the verge of tears, and then they'd fucking _apologise_ for it.

When he finally got to close his door at the end of the day, he spent five minutes sitting at his desk, staring blankly. He wasn't going to go downstairs. He wasn't going to prolong a day that had lasted far too long already.

He did.

"Happy fucking birthday," he growled at Eren's peaceful face. He'd have been tempted to punch it if he hadn't known it would have done him an injury if he'd tried. But he couldn't maintain the anger for very long; he was just too fucking tired. He folded his arms and leant against the wall and waited for it to drain out of him.

"I know," Levi said eventually. "What a burden expectations can be. To be our hope, you took it on without even thinking about it, I'm sure. I've never seen you think things through- no, that's not fair. And what what I wanted to say, anyway." He moved closer and sat down, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees. "The point is, as much as our hope burdened you, it burdens us as well. It holds us back, and blinds us to reality. We can't give it up, not yet, although I think some of them are starting to try."

He'd been trying and failing since day one.

He started to speak several times before he worked out what he wanted to say.

"You're my hope, too, Eren." He said it. "When you appeared out of nowhere with your ridiculous abilities. And you won our first battle for us; humanity gained ground. I don't think many people here have lived long enough to know what that means. Not really. You took something back." Levi clenched and unclenched his hands, "After so much had been taken from us. I met you and I knew hope."

"Not just because of what you can do, but who you are. Your rage, courage, optimism." He bowed his head and ran his hands through his hair. "And that is why I cannot understand how it came to this. This is not a fit ending for someone like you."

He fell silent. He'd intended to say none of this, but now that he had he felt better. It had relieved the burden a little. He realised he was very tired, and he got to his feet before he fell asleep in the chair. God knew what Hange would make of it if they found him dozing here tomorrow morning.

"Happy Birthday, Eren. I didn't get you anything." He frowned, "But you don't want anything any more, do you?"

Just as the others were starting to give up, Levi found he was picking up the slack. It became a habit to walk down to the dungeon late at night and talk. At first he talked about the others, what they were doing, how the training was going, but it was repetitive and depressing. He wondered if he should start reading books to him like Armin still did, but Levi honestly wasn't much of a reader; he'd had to learn later in life and while he was competent, he wasn't comfortable with the written word.

He had plenty of war stories, and he told those instead, trying to avoid the more depressing ones, or the more depressing parts at least.

"Maybe you'll learn something," he said. "You're going to be in fucking terrible condition when you wake up. You'll need all the tutoring you can get in the meantime."

He wasn't sure how he was managing to function on four or five hours sleep a night, but for now he was doing so without too many problems and he watched himself to make sure his standards didn't slip. When he had a day off he'd spend most of it dozing.

He started running out of war stories.

"I'm telling you this backwards," he said one night. He'd finished his tea. "When I was your age-" He paused. He didn't talk about where he came from, or what he'd done, he'd never even considered it until now, no matter how many doe-eyed recruits asked him cautious questions. "Do you really want to hear this?" he asked.

He realised that he actually wanted to tell him. He didn't know why, but he'd been pouring out bits of his past for weeks, and he didn't want to stop.

"You're a much better listener now, Eren, I'll give you that."

Oh fuck.

He hadn't meant to say that, he hadn't. Because he remembered that Eren _was_ a good listener. As impulsive and foolish as he was, when Levi spoke he stopped and paid attention. And then he'd take whatever Levi told him and probably do something stupid with it, something stupid and brave.

Levi buried his face in his hands, and he pushed back tears behind his eyelids. This was threatening to break him. He'd almost forgotten who was under there, what the real Eren was like. And now he remembered.

"I miss you."

He didn't say anything else that night.

The next time he tried again. "When I was your age," he began.

Things weren't really better. Eren didn't wake up.

"We can't let this go on for much longer," Levi told Erwin. "They're not going to be fit for anything but cleaning duty at this rate."

"I agree," Erwin said, to Levi's surprise. "We can't wait any longer. We still have all the information we did before this happened. Things will be more difficult without Eren, but we need to start organising the next expedition."

Levi knew that was all he was going to get out of Erwin for now, but it was more than he'd expected at least.

He told Eren before the others. Erwin would make the announcement when he was ready. Levi hoped it would be sooner rather than later; it would take people's minds off it all. He never thought he'd see the day where the thought of going out of the walls and fighting titans would actually improve morale.

"I imagine we'll be attempting to take a look at your basement," Levi said, turning his cup around in his hands. "I'm not sure how long we'll be gone, or even when we're leaving, yet. In a couple of weeks, I suppose. You'll just have to make do without us for a while."

Eren, as always, didn't respond, and days continued to pass.

Levi kept the dust off Eren's face and hands, but he never touched him otherwise. His hands were slightly raised, frozen in place, and he knew Mikasa and Armin often held them, and Levi suspected they weren't the only ones. Levi didn't think it was particularly appropriate for him to do so, although sometimes he was tempted.

"Well, the announcement's been made, as I expect your friends have told you already." He'd try and bring them all back safely, but Levi never made promises. He didn't have anything else to say, and he just sat in silence for a while.

Eventually he stood up and stretched. Before he left he held the lantern up close and peered through the crystal to Eren's face. He didn't want to forget what he looked like.

"It's a shame I can't see your eyes," he murmured.

He wondered if anyone had tried kissing him; like this was a fairytale and not another grim chapter in humanity's history. He wouldn't have put it past them. Clearly it hadn't worked, so where was he going with this? He hesitated and then reached up to brush an imaginary smudge off Eren's cheek with his thumb.

A sound like breaking glass.

Levi recoiled and put the lantern down.

"Eren?" His heart was beating fast. "Eren?" He looked him over, but nothing seemed to have changed. He hadn't moved. There weren't any cracks in the crystal. Levi sighed. "I need sleep," he said, running a hand over his face. He needed to be in better condition than this before he left on the expedition. He'd let this get to him too much.

Levi made himself go to bed early the next few nights.

They were planning to leave in two days when Levi visited Eren again.

"I probably won't have time tomorrow," he said. "So this is farewell, for now. I hope you're having good dreams." He sighed. No wonder everyone but Mikasa and Armin had mostly given up; a one-sided conversation just couldn't be sustained indefinitely. At least he'd have something to talk about when he came back.

He stood, and nodded at Eren, and then he turned and walked out, his lantern in his hand.

A sound like breaking glass.

Levi froze in the doorway.

A sound like breaking glass. There was no mistaking it. He turned, crossing the room to Eren's bedside.

"Eren?"

Levi stared. Eren's hands were fracturing. A thousand tiny cracks, multiplying as Levi watched, crazing the surface of the crystal. They crept across Eren's face. Levi held his breath. Come on, Eren. Come on.

And then it shattered, shards of crystal scattering across the bed and the pillow as Eren lowered his hands and opened his eyes. Levi flinched, instinctively turning away to avoid getting shards in his eyes. Just like that, the crystal had fallen away, cracked like eggshell.

"Eren!" Levi leaned over him, looking once again into his green eyes. He was going to say something, something like 'I should have guessed the thought of killing titans would motivate you' but no words passed his lips as he watched Eren's peaceful expression finally crumble.

Levi had stood with survivors on dozens of battlefields, and he recognised the sound that poured from Eren's mouth as a raw scream of pure grief. If he hadn't been in the dungeon, Eren would have woken up half of HQ.

Levi stood in sheer shock for a few moments as Eren's eyes, the one's he'd missed so much, filled and overflowed with uncontrollable tears. He'd never seen Eren like this before.

"Eren?"

"Mother," Eren choked, his lips drawn back from his teeth in a rictus of pain. "Died."

Levi didn't even think about it, he acted. He didn't understand why Eren was suddenly so upset, but he knew his heart was breaking. Levi wouldn't just stand idly by and watch. Couldn't.

"Eren, come on, sit up. Or you'll drown." Eren didn't move, but he let Levi wrap his arms around his shoulders and lift him up. As soon as he realised what Levi was doing, the teenager clung to him and buried his face in Levi's shoulder.

He cried. There was a year's worth of crying, maybe more, just pouring out of Eren without restraint. He dug his fingers into Levi's jacket and heaved great big gasping sobs against the material. Sometimes he'd say names, some of which Levi didn't recognise and some he did; the ones he knew all belonged to the dead. Levi wrapped his arms around him and hung on.

He was back. Levi was just so relieved, he wasn't sure this desperate embrace was solely for Eren's benefit. He was alive and breathing and absolutely disgusting, Levi thought. His face, and now Levi's jacket, was covered in a mixture of snot and tears. Levi felt like crying himself. Of all the people he'd lost over the years, this was the first time someone had come back.

Forever surprising, that Eren Jaeger.

"We lived by the sea," Eren said eventually, although Levi had to concentrate to make out his words, as they were thick and clumsy with tears. "We were alive and happy. All of us. Everyone."

Levi sighed. So that's what he'd been doing in there. No wonder he hadn't wanted to come out. He felt Eren pull back.

"I'm sorry, Captain- Corporal, your jacket-"

"Then don't smear it around. There's this substance called soap, Eren, I'm not surprised you haven't heard of it." That won him a soft chuckle that sounded closer to a sob. "It's fine," he added. "It's all right." He dug a handkerchief out of his pocket with one hand, keeping the other around Eren's shoulders. Fuck, he'd been gone for _months_ and all he did was apologise for messing up his jacket.

Eren accepted it and blew his nose. He was starting to calm down at least, but he seemed in no hurry to move away, and Levi found he didn't really mind that either. Eren's breathing started to even out a bit.

"Why is there a potato?" he asked eventually. It was sitting on the bedside table, sprouting and wrinkling.

Levi looked at it. "It's your birthday present from Sasha. She said if you knew what you were missing out on you might be motivated to wake up."

"But it's raw. It's growing."

"She brought you a cooked one originally, but apparently it started to get cold so she ate it." He'd heard this story from Jean when he'd questioned him about the arrival of the potato. He'd been desperate to get rid of the disgusting thing, and was planning on throwing it out before the expedition left.

"I had a birthday party," Eren said softly. "There was a cake, and my... my mother gave me new shoes." Levi can hear the tears threatening to return in his voice. There was nothing he could say; he could only guess how many people Eren had lost over the past five years. Poor kid.

Levi cringed as he felt Eren try and clean his jacket with his handkerchief.

"Stop that," he said.

Eren looked up at him. His eyes and nose were red, but he looked like he'd cried himself out at last. He gazed up at Levi with a strange expression, one Levi didn't recognise.

"You were there too," Eren said softly. "Not at the party, but there."

"That's not really surprising," Levi said.

"You had your own ship." He didn't think that's what Eren wanted to say, exactly. He was definitely keeping something back, something that lurked in his eyes when he met Levi's gaze. He wondered if the portrait Eren's mind had painted of him hadn't been entirely flattering.

No, that wasn't it. It was something else, something that made his tired, battered heart jump. He couldn't back away now, not when Eren needed him so much, but he had to start looking for the exits.


	9. Chapter 9

Eren had crossed the horizon, and Levi hadn't lied; it hurt beyond imagining as his carefully-constructed world fractured and fell away. Eren felt himself returning to his own skin, as the full horror of reality descended; all the deaths, all the pain and fear. All the responsibility, when only a little while ago he'd been a careless schoolboy hopping along the beach.

The beach.

He couldn't remember what the sea tasted like. It was fading into a shining blue haze. He could taste the salt of his tears; he knew it was the closest he was going to get, for a long time if not forever.

He felt relieved, too. Like he could stop working so hard packing the truth away from himself, that there was some part of his mind that could finally stop running itself ragged. He set down a burden he didn't know he'd been carrying, and taken up so many others. He felt sick and empty and guilty.

He was, in short, a mess.

He'd barely begun to work out what had happened and where he was when he saw Levi bending over him, offering him comfort. Eren was sure he'd never be able to make him understand what it meant at that moment to have someone there to hold him. He heaved up his seething emotions against Levi's shoulder, and Levi pulled him close and stroked his back without comment.

Levi. The real one. His embrace was hard and unpractised, and Eren didn't mind at all, because he felt _safe_ here in Levi's arms. Even if the world was cruel and unkind, Levi wasn't, for all his growling and glaring. If there was anything to be happy about it was this; that he hadn't lost him. Eren didn't know why he was even here, as he sensed it was the middle of the night, but he was so very, very glad that he was. He clung to him, this one piece of reality that he couldn't give up.

"You had your own ship." His voice sounded rusty and disused to his own ears, and he wondered how long he'd been gone. Sasha had given him a potato for his birthday and it was still there; months then, not years. It felt like years. It felt like he had a whole sixteen years in his head, beautiful ridiculous years right alongside the other ones, the real ones that he didn't want to remember. He was still sorting them out, the real from the dream. He felt like he was two slightly different people, and he felt so, so sorry for the real one.

When he finally managed to get his crying under control Eren looked at Levi's face, trying to read his expression. In reality he gave no more away than he had in the dream. He was just as handsome, even if he looked slightly thinner and deeply tired.

Eren wanted to tell him what he'd been like, the cryptic captain with the beautiful ship who would not be caged even by his creator. He wanted to explain what had happened between them, and what hadn't happened after all.

He realised with deep embarrassment he'd created a version of Levi and then fallen in love with him. That wasn't fair to the real one, Eren knew that. He was getting muddled, and cuddling up against Levi wasn't helping. And he knew they were edging away from comforting towards cuddling with every passing moment the tears were drying on his face and he didn't move. With infinite reluctance, he released his grip on Levi and they separated.

"How do you feel?" Levi asked. "Hungry? Thirsty?"

Eren thought for a moment. "Yes. Both of those." He felt tired too, but not physically. He looked at the shards of crystal scattered on his bed. "Annie," he said softly. "In my dream." It still didn't feel like a dream, but he didn't know what else to call it. "You asked me where she was because she wasn't there; she might have reminded me. It was like you knew it was all fake all along. Where _is _Annie?"

"In a crystal much thicker than yours."

"I see."

"I should fetch Hange. I don't think they'll be too upset about being woken up early for this."

"Can you-?" Eren looked up at him. "Wait a bit, please? I don't feel like I could face Hange right now."

"Hm. I understand." Levi looked like he did. "I'll get you something to eat."

"No, don't leave!" If he left him alone, he'd start crying again, and he felt wrung out and his throat was sore and he was sick of crying. If he just concentrated on Levi, he could keep going. Levi's voice, Levi's calm; it gave him something to draw strength from. "I'll come with you," he added. He pushed the blankets back, and put his feet on the floor.

He felt convalescent, thin-skinned and newly hatched. Like he felt when he emerged from titan form, but the feeling ran deeper this time. He pushed himself up onto his feet and immediately his knees bent under his weight. Levi caught him before he fell.

"Are you sure?" he asked, his arm around Eren's ribs.

"Yes!"

"All right." He rearranged Eren, winding his arm over his shoulder, taking as much of his weight as he needed to with his arm around his back. Then he picked up the lantern and the pair of them shuffled out like a couple of drunks.

Eren had forgotten about the stairs. If he'd remembered them, he might have reconsidered his decision. But he wasn't going to back down, and Levi didn't hurry him. They took the stairs one at a time.

Eren frowned, staring at his bare feet. He didn't even notice they'd reached the top until he couldn't find the next step. He realised Levi was looking at his face, his expression soft.

Eren wanted to think fond. Relieved at least.

He took a deep breath, uncertain as to whether he wanted to step away from Levi or hold him closer and unable to do either. They made better progress now they were past the stairs and when they made it to the kitchen Levi deposited him in a chair at the wooden table.

Levi got him a mug of water, and refilled it when Eren gulped it down. Then he took off his jacket and scrubbed off the drying snot in the sink for a few moments before hanging it over the back of a chair to let it dry. Yep, that part of Levi certainly wasn't a dream.

"Do you think you could handle some eggs?" Levi asked, peering into the store room. "Or would you prefer something easier to eat?"

"I feel like I could eat a horse," Eren said. "Anything is fine."

Levi nodded, rolled his sleeves up and started cooking. Eren had never seen him cook before, but he was precise and neat as he would have expected. He didn't get any shell in the frying pan, which Eren always did when he tried to cook and then he'd have to fish it out, nearly burning himself.

"The food was really good," Eren said. He wanted to say something. He had so much to get off his chest, but what he most wanted to talk about he couldn't say. "We were never hungry, there was always enough for seconds. And Mother would-" He screwed his face up and rubbed his eyes. "Shit, I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

Levi didn't say anything, he just cooked, but it was an easy sort of silence that gave Eren time to collect himself again. A short while later, Levi put down a plate of toast and fried eggs in front of him.

"Early breakfast," he said.

"Thank you, Corporal Levi." He felt honoured, although it wasn't as if Levi had had much choice in feeding him.

Eren inhaled the eggs. As amazing as the food had been in his dream, the real thing was beyond description. It didn't even bother him that there wasn't any salt. Levi had cooked them pretty much perfectly, and they were hot and the yolks were soft the way he liked them, and the toast wasn't burnt at all. He was halfway through when Levi saw how ravenous he was and started cooking him some more without comment.

He slid the second plate across and then made tea.

Eren looked up from his food, realising Levi was just sitting across from him, drinking tea and watching him eat with a faint smile on his face. He felt his own face start to grow warm.

"Um, is something wrong, Corporal Levi?"

"It's good to have you back, Eren."

"Thank you, Captain- I mean, Corporal." Levi must have missed him, even a little, and for the first time since he woke up, Eren felt a bit happier.

"My own ship, you say?" Levi mused.

"Yeah," Eren leaned forward, eager to share, but Levi finished his tea and pushed his chair back before Eren could elaborate further.

"I should fetch Hange."

"Okay," Eren said, a little disappointed. But after four eggs, six slices of toast and two cups of tea, Eren was feeling strong enough to face Hange. Levi left him to his own devices and he got up and put his dishes in the sink without assistance, noting that Levi had already cleaned the frying pan and swept up the breadcrumbs.

"Ereeen!"

Eren started as his own name echoed down the hallway. He sighed and sat back down again and braced himself; Hange was awake. He heard running footsteps and then Hange appeared in the doorway, skidding to a halt and steadying themselves on the door frame. They were dressed in pyjamas, their hair was in a tangled mess, and their glasses were askew on eyes gleaming with excitement.

"Eren! It's so good to see you back!" Hange practically leapt at him, but had the presence of mind to go around the table at the last moment rather than climbing up over it. "How do you feel? I see your temperature's still a bit high." They pressed their hand to Eren's forehead. "Good that you've got an appetite. Do you remember anything that happened since you fought Annie?"

"I was dreaming," Eren said. "That we all lived by the sea."

Levi finally caught up, having refused to keep pace with Hange's excited flight. He'd barely got through the door when Armin appeared, eyes slitted against the light. He looked like he'd gotten up before he'd actually woken up.

"Hange are you-" His eyes widened. "Oh." He stared at Eren for a few moments and then rubbed his eyes, probably wondering if he was dreaming. "Eren?"

"Hello, Armin." It was strange; he'd only seen Armin a few hours ago, standing on the docks of Shiganshina-by-the-Sea, as he was beginning to think of it, his bag at his feet and a sleepy look on his face that was remarkably similar to the one that was rapidly being replaced by sheer shock and delight.

"Eren!" Armin ran to his side, and touched his shoulder gently as if he expected him to pop like a soap bubble.

"Tell us about your dream, Eren," Hange said, while Armin blinked back tears and beamed at him.

"I don't know where to start," Eren said. He'd lived a whole _life_ in that dream.

More people started to show up, sleepy and half-dressed, woken by Hange's yelling and drawn by Armin's continuing absence. Mikasa was carrying a blade when she arrived, expecting, somehow, the worst. She dropped it when she saw Eren, and it clattered to the stone-flagged floor.

"We lived by the sea," Eren said. "All of us together." Then he was practically mobbed. Jean looked pissed off and relieved and everyone wanted to touch him; hug him or pat him or ruffle his hair. Hange looked so happy an observer might have assumed they'd hatched him themselves.

Levi just watched, leaning against the wall with his arms folded.

Eren tried to bear with it because he'd fooled himself in to thinking he was with them all along so of course he didn't feel the same way they did; they'd missed him for months, he'd seen them only hours ago. But he was feeling stifled and he didn't know how he was supposed to react to the emotion in everyone else's faces. He couldn't tell them that he hadn't missed them at all, that he'd replaced them in his head. It felt cruel to even think it, and he apologised, although he didn't explain for what. He just wanted some time to think.

He shot Levi an anxious look, and Levi caught his gaze and moved. The corporal abandoned his wall and stepped forward.

"That's enough," he said. "Look at yourselves. You look like a bunch of squawking chickens, not soldiers. Eren will still be here when you've made yourselves presentable. You too, Hange," he said. "Shouldn't you be writing everything down in one of those disgusting notebooks you carry around?"

"Ah," Hange looked down, apparently only just noticing they were still dressed for bed, patting themselves down absently, looking for something to write with. "Good point, Corporal Levi."

"Out!" Levi ordered. "He's spent six months asleep, give him an hour or two to adjust. You two can stay," he added, when it looked like Mikasa was going to risk insubordination. Levi picked up his jacket after the others had left. "Report to Hange's office when you're doing catching up, Eren," he said.

"Thank you, Sir," Eren said. For everything.

Levi nodded and left them to it.

Mikasa hugged him so hard he had to tell her eventually that she was making it hard to breathe.

"You were dreaming the whole time?" Armin asked.

"It wasn't like a dream," Eren said. "It was like a whole other life. Shiganshina was near the sea, and we all went to school together." He swallowed hard, "Everyone was alive, and we had nothing to worry about. We went fishing and," he took a deep breath. "The three of us were going to sail out over the horizon on Levi's ship with the other members of the Survey Corps, only they weren't called that, they were just sailors." He didn't tell them that they'd failed to actually achieve that goal in the end. He still didn't know what he wanted to share and what he wanted to keep to himself.

Armin was more interested in the ocean. "Ah, I read to you about the ocean a lot," he said. "I hoped it would remind you to wake up. I suppose that's why you started dreaming about it." He smiled softly, "I dream about it sometimes too, but nothing very specific. What was it like?"

Eren did his best to describe it, but when he tried to put it into words, they were the same ones that Armin had read to him in the first place. The reality of it, the size and smell and power, the way its moods changed with the sky, they were beyond his powers of description.

"Why did you come back then?" Mikasa asked. The look on her face suggested she realised what Eren had been doing, and why he'd not woken up for so long. He couldn't tell if she was disappointed in him or not.

"I died," Eren said softly while the others looked at him in alarm. He could still see the surface of the water receding from view, feel his lungs aching for air. "I was drowning." Maybe that had been the only way out in the end.

He felt strong enough to walk by himself now, but Armin and Mikasa accompanied him to Hange's laboratory.

"We'll get dressed and bring you some breakfast," Mikasa said.

"It's okay. Levi cooked for me already," Eren said, knocking on Hange's door.

Hange flung it open and dragged Eren inside before Mikasa could answer.

"I'll see you later!" Eren called.

A lot later, as it turned out. Hange forgot about their own breakfast, and got straight to work. Eren was used to Hange's examinations by now, and he let them peer into his eyes and take his temperature and measure his heart rate without even thinking about it. Instead, Eren was furiously sorting his memories into things he felt comfortable sharing with Hange and things he didn't.

It got hard to keep track.

Most of what he wanted to keep to himself were the moments he'd shared with Captain Levi, but he couldn't leave out the general gist of his attempts to join the _Wings of Freedom_.

"I was there too? I was first mate?" They laughed, delighted. "That sounds very exciting."

They were even more delighted to learn that Mike was the ship's cook.

Eren talked himself hoarse, although he knew this wasn't telling Hange any useful information. His dream was just a reflection of how he might have imagined a better life; there was nothing to learn about the titans or anything else. Except maybe that he'd rather die than let Levi leave him.

Not something to share. He still felt twitchy and uncomfortable thinking about it, like he'd taken advantage of Levi somehow, even though his dream version had rejected Eren's advance just as firmly as the real one would have.

Levi rescued him at lunchtime.

"He needs to eat, Hange," he said. "And so do you."

"You care after all," Hange said. "Well, we can take a break. I can see this is going to take days to get it all down anyway." Hange had covered pages of their notebook in spidery handwriting, and their fingers were stained with ink. "You should read it, Levi," Hange offered him the tattered and dog-eared book, stained with tea and who knew what else.

Eren was unsurprised when Levi declined to take it.

"There are few things less interesting than hearing about someone else's dreams." Eren couldn't help but feel slightly hurt at his words. It wasn't an ordinary dream they were talking about, after all.

"But you're in them. You play a large role-"

"Eren, come and eat." Levi turned to go and Eren scrambled to follow. They walked in silence for a while. Eren realised he was still barefoot. He half expected Levi would chip him about it, but Levi paid him no attention.

"Um?" There was a lot he wanted to say.

"Erwin's cancelled the next expedition in light of your return. So tomorrow I'll run you through the training course to see how much condition you've lost. The time you spent in the crystal obviously wasn't as debilitating as true unconsciousness would have been, or maybe it was your titan healing factor. You haven't eaten for months, but you still seem no thinner than you were." He glanced at Eren, looking him up and down critically.

"Right." Eren flushed under Levi's scrutiny.

"It's as if you were in suspended animation. Annie appears to be in a similar state, so perhaps one day she'll wake up as well."

"I wonder what she's dreaming about," Eren said softly.

"If we knew that we'd probably answer a lot of questions."

Eren hoped that whatever she was dreaming, it was pleasant.

"Wait, you were going to go on an expedition without me?"

"How long would you have had us wait? We were to leave tomorrow."

"I dreamt you were leaving." Eren frowned. That's why I ran after your ship, and-" he cut himself off as Levi walked into the dining room. He didn't seem to be listening anyway.

He spent the afternoon with Hange. He could hear the others working outside, looking after the horses and practising. He wished he could join them, and he held fast to Levi's promise that he'd have training tomorrow.

After dinner, Eren took his time brushing his teeth– he hadn't done it in six months, after all– and staring at himself in the mirror. He looked older than he had in his dream; his eyes had seen things that his dreaming self couldn't have imagined. And hey, he was sixteen now. Or thirty-two, if you looked at it another way. Everyone else had already gone to bed. Eren had lingered as long as he could over his last cup of tea, and now he was dragging his feet as he made his way out of the bathroom.

He didn't want to go to bed. He didn't want to sleep again, but it had been a long day, and he knew he was tired.

He sat in bed for a while, looking at the extra furniture in his room. He'd heard from some people already how they'd sat and talked to him, how even Jean had paced up and down his room carrying on one-sided arguments overflowing with insults. He felt unworthy of these attentions, in a way, of all those words wasted on his behalf.

Mikasa had said Levi rarely visited him, but he'd been there when Eren had woken up. He resolved to try and find the courage to ask Levi about it sometime. Reluctantly, he curled down into his newly made bed. Hange had collected all the bits of crystal before Eren had changed the sheets. Eren had looked at them for a little while, glinting in Hange's hands, and then decided he didn't want to see them again.

He missed his bed at home. It had smelled better than this one, although he couldn't remember what it had been like exactly. He had so many memories of his mother doing the laundry; they were his happiest ones in reality, in the dream they had merely been one of thousands, ordinary and unremarkable. He curled himself up tighter, squeezing his eyes shut. He didn't want to think about the dead.

He didn't want to start crying again either. He didn't know if he wanted to remember or forget Shiganshina-by-the-Sea. He sorted through his memories, trying to find something that would help him sleep rather than make him feel worse.

He found himself back in Levi's arms.

That had been real. He wrapped his arms around his pillow. It was a poor substitute, but he already felt himself starting to relax. Levi had been warm and patient, he hadn't cared about the mess Eren made of his jacket, even.

It was with those thoughts that Eren managed to sleep.

Eren woke up, wondering why it was still so dark. Was it a school day? He lifted his head from the blankets, and saw the sun filtering in through the small barred window in his dungeon.

Right. He was here in reality.

At least he didn't have to go to school, he told himself. It wasn't much of a comfort. He still had to get out of bed into a cold stone room, and walk through cold, draughty stone halls to a cold communal bathroom and stand shivering with a bunch of other half-dressed guys queuing for cold showers because the stoves weren't lit yet and there wasn't any hot water.

"I wish I was at the beach too," Connie said. "Hey, Eren, could I swim in your dream?"

"Uh. I think everyone could swim," Eren said. "At least, you came with us out into the water."

"Wait, we went swimming with the girls?" Jean opened his eyes wide, getting a slightly glazed expression on his face.

"We weren't _naked. _It wasn't that sort of dream!" Eren objected while the others laughed. At least, the part that involved swimming with the girls wasn't that sort of dream.

Eren realised his dream wasn't just his any more. The others wanted to share it too, and imagine a life of ease and fun and food.

"Food! What was it like? Start with breakfast, please." Sasha sat opposite him at the breakfast table, having made a beeline for that particular seat as soon as she'd arrived.

Eren sighed, and stirred his porridge as he described eggs and bacon and toast with honey, while Sasha daydreamed about it, and told him how amazing it all sounded.

"I'm so jealous," she said. "Why can't my dreams be like that?"

"I thought they were," Mikasa objected, and Eren took the opportunity to actually stop talking and start eating. "You're always muttering in your sleep about how delicious everything is and how you will have seconds."

"Well I don't remember them, so it doesn't really count."

Eren was relieved when Levi arrived with the day's orders, and he could stop talking about it. While the others started on the day's cleaning, Levi took him outside to see what he remembered of using the 3d manoeuvre gear.

Levi insisted they always clean and oil them beforehand, and they worked in silence. Eren's gear was dusty and disused, and he was still working on it long after Levi's spotless equipment was even more spotless, and Levi himself had gone inside to make sure everyone else was doing what they were supposed to.

Eren didn't think he'd forgotten anything. He stripped and reassembled his gear without any problems, but when he put it on it sat heavily on his hips. He felt awkward. But wearing his gear wasn't nearly as strange as when he went to collect a set of blades.

He barely noticed Levi return, as he was staring at the weapon in his hand and looking along the length of the blade, mesmerised.

"What is it, Eren?"

Eren started at Levi's voice. "This was in my dream, but I didn't recognise it at the time."

"I see."

"You gave me one of these as a birthday present." He'd been slightly scared and yet so happy as well.

"Well, you've got a whole set, now. Come on."

The area around HQ wasn't quite the same.

The training area had been expanded since Eren had last been there. He found himself noting the changes in the forest and the extra targets, and he even tried to work out of the trees themselves had grown much.

"Just head straight in," Levi said. "Forget about the targets for now, I want to see how well you remember to use your gear."

"Right." Eren was determined.

His head snapped back at the sudden jolt as his feet left the ground. He panicked momentarily but as his gear flung him forward he sent out the grapples again without even thinking about it as his instincts kicked in. He felt his movements were sloppy and his reactions slightly slow at first, but it was coming back to him.

It was all coming back to him. The way they'd stood far above the ground, with the breeze in their hair and the sun on their heads, and the ropes tapping and shifting around them. Eren remembered. Levi had freed him from the bonds of earth, and given him his weapon. He'd been preparing him for his life beyond the horizon, for his return to the real world.

Eren moved faster, more confidently. The trees raced at him and he swung past their branches, his harness tugging at him, and it all felt familiar. He heard a sharp whistle and he anchored himself to a tree and looked back.

Levi was a silhouette against the sunlight at the edge of the forest. Eren watched him raise an arm as he signalled him to come back.

When Eren skidded to a stop in front of Levi, he was grinning. "You were definitely trying to remind me, trying to get me out of there. Well, not you, but the you I came up with." He knew he wasn't making a lot of sense, but he was just so relieved that he remembered how to fly.

"You looked a bit rusty at first," Levi said. "But you picked it back up quickly enough. I wouldn't have guessed you just had six months off."

"Thank you, Corporal." Eren was happy to be praised, but he wished Levi would at least react when he talked about his dream.

"Let's see you fight," Levi said. "Once around the course, as fast as you can."

Eren drew his blades. The course had changed so he couldn't rely on his memory, but he found he enjoyed being surprised. His attacks had power behind them and he relished just being able to move, flex his body and test his muscles again. He was free, free of that crystal cage and all delusions. He thought he made good time, and he didn't miss any of the targets, but when he returned to Levi, his superior was watching him with a faint frown.

Uh oh.

Breathing heavily, Eren sheathed his blades and walked back to Levi, standing to attention to await his verdict.

Levi just looked at him, his head tilted slightly to one side, still frowning. And then he actually smiled. It wasn't much of a smile by most standards, but it took Eren's breath away. Levi looked slightly surprised, and pleased, and Eren couldn't help but grin in return, dazzled.

"It looks like you were paying attention to my war stories after all. You've improved, Eren. Markedly."

"Wh-" He felt like laughing. "Thank you, Sir. In my dream, you trained me. We practised with wooden swords, on your ship. And then I practised by myself."

"Hm."

"Wait a minute, you told me war stories?"

Levi paused. "Yes, Eren. I did. I didn't have many other stories to tell. I'm glad to see some of it sunk in."

Eren saw his chance. "Mikasa said you didn't visit me much at all." He frowned, "But you were there when I woke up." Levi was watching him with a wary look, like a wild animal edging closer to proffered food. "You waited until everyone else was asleep before you visited me?"

"No, Eren, I did not. I couldn't sleep, so I visited you."

"Why couldn't you sleep?"

"Eren. That's enough for now. Go and have something to eat."


	10. Chapter 10

He was drowning. He could see the surface receding above him, and he could feel the tug of deep water pulling him down in to the dark. He couldn't move. He tried to struggle, to break the shell and strike upwards but he was frozen, trapped under a layer of immovable crystal.

He needed to breathe. He didn't want to die.

Eren jolted into wakefulness. His sheets were twisted around his body, it was almost totally dark, and for a few moments he couldn't work out where he was.

Just a dream. Thank goodness. He disentangled himself, his heart still racing and his skin clammy. The faintest starlight was coming in through his window, and he could only vaguely make out the shapes of the furniture in his room.

He was in the dungeon, right. Of course he was. He could shout in his sleep all he wanted and no one would hear him, and while that had never bothered him before, now he felt very lonely stuck down here.

He tried to get back to sleep the way he usually did, curling up in the memory of Levi's arms, but it was getting more difficult to sustain the fantasy as the days passed. He got the distinct impression Levi was avoiding him. He certainly avoided the subject of his dream with a thoroughness that was almost rude. And the rest of the time, even when he was there Eren could sense he was holding himself back, watching their interactions from somewhere behind his eyes.

From a safe distance.

Eren didn't know why. So many things had changed slightly; he'd fallen behind on all the in-jokes, he didn't realise they had a new cleaning roster. He wasn't punished for these things, and no one was doing it deliberately to exclude him, but he felt out of synch with his own life. He supposed it would get better with time, but for now he wished he wasn't so alone.

He didn't get a lot of sleep, and he showed all over his face when he arrived at breakfast the next morning. He was in a terrible mood.

Jean asked why he'd slept so badly since he'd had six months of practice. Eren didn't respond.

No one seemed to have grown tired of asking Eren about his dream. He had years of incident to draw from, and he found he wasn't running out of stories either. Mostly people wanted to hear about themselves, the trouble they got in, the fun they had. Eren was tired of it.

The next person who asked him about it, he decided, as he swept out the stables with vicious strokes of the broom the raised more dust than they actually shifted, was going to get a punch in the face. Unless it was Levi. He still held out hope that Levi would ask him about it, even as that hope dwindled as the days went by.

"Hey Eren."

Oh hell yes. He was so glad it was Jean. He would have felt bad if it had been Armin. Jean was sweeping too, a little less angrily than Eren was, and then he paused and rested his hands on top of the broom.

"What is it?" Right in the kisser. Or in the stomach. Eren swept closer, to give Jean less time to dodge.

"How was Marco?"

Shit.

Eren's resolve melted away.

"What do you mean? He was fine."

"Was he happy? Tell me about him, please?"

He should have expected this was coming sooner or later. Eren didn't have the heart to do anything but answer honestly. "Yeah. He used to study with Armin sometimes when we didn't have school. He lived with his folks, but I never visited his house."

"Were we friends? Him and me, I mean." Jean was staring at the floor, and Eren was glad he didn't have to meet his eyes. This was sad and awkward, and Eren wished Levi would come in and yell at them for stopping work.

"Yeah, of course. If there was an argument, you'd always end up going with what Marco wanted, even if you didn't want to at first. He'd just smile and say, 'Come on, Jean' and you'd grumble and go along with it."

"Yeah," Jean said with a heartbroken smile. "That sounds right. Thanks, Eren."

Eren nodded, although Jean wasn't looking at him, and they finished their work in silence.

It was only a matter of time before they started talking about Shiganhina-by-the-Sea as a real place, something they might have visited once, or existed somewhere else in the world. Eren wondered if he was ever going to be really free of it.

"I'm tired of talking about it," he confessed to Hange.

The last thing they had to do before Erwin rescheduled the next expedition was test Eren's titan abilities to make sure they hadn't been adversely affected by the time he'd spent in the crystal. He wasn't looking forward to them, but he was resigned, and so he was going over what would be required of him with Hange in their laboratory before dinner.

"I'm not surprised everyone finds it so interesting. I haven't found any records of anyone having a dream like that one." They looked at him kindly. "Don't worry, once we're back in the field and get our hands on some titans I'm sure the others will have something else to talk about." They clasped their hands together, "If the next expedition is a success, who knows what amazing things we'll learn?"

Hange wasn't the worst person he could have chosen to talk to, but they did have a bit of a one track mind.

"Thanks Hange," Eren said.

"Any time, Eren. You know you can always come and talk to me about whatever's bothering you."

Yeah, so you can write it all down, Eren thought. He sighed. He was being a bit unfair; he sensed that Hange did care about him in their own way, and not just because he was a part-time titan.

That evening, Connie asked Eren what he wanted for this birthday.

"What?" for a few moments, Eren was utterly confused. He'd had a birthday, and he'd even told the others about it and then Armin had to sort through half a dozen books before he found a picture of a crab for Connie. "Oh. I don't need anything really."

"Don't be ridiculous, Eren," Sasha said. "Just because you've already had a party with lots of amazing food, the rest of us haven't. Don't back out now; if we're lucky Erwin might get us a cake! Can you imagine?"

"So you're saying this party is for you, rather than Eren," Mikasa said.

"I'm saying without Eren we don't have a party at all. Come on, Eren, please?"

Eren looked around the table. His gaze was met by half a dozen hopeful expressions. He didn't really _want_ a party for a birthday that was over weeks ago, but he owed them, really. They'd been miserable while he'd gone and if his birthday scored them some cake, who was he to argue? It was the least he could do to pay them back.

"Okay, let's have a party." He managed something approximating a smile.

To his surprise, he found he was starting to look forward to it after a couple of days of people sneaking around with ingredients. It wouldn't be anything like the party he'd had by the beach, but he treasured his friends and was glad they were still alive, and their rising spirits buoyed his own.

Levi said nothing. He didn't even acknowledge it was on, one way or another, although Hange had assured Eren that they wouldn't let Levi spoil things.

"Just because he's too grumpy to enjoy himself. Erwin agrees it will be good for morale, so you've got nothing to worry about."

Eren wasn't really worried about Levi spoiling things; he knew Levi wouldn't do something like that, he just wondered what he'd done to piss him off so thoroughly. When he'd woken up, Levi had been so kind. Eren wished his eyes hadn't been so blurry; maybe he missed something in Levi's expression that explained everything.

He made up his mind to do something about it before they left for the next expedition. He refused to let this hang over him and run the risk that he or Levi would die without ever smoothing things out between them one way or another.

Because even though Corporal Levi wasn't quite the same as Captain Levi, Eren realised he felt even more strongly about him. Captain Levi had been a mystery, wrapped up in what lay beyond the horizon, but Eren _knew_ the corporal. He knew what burdens he carried and what horrors he'd seen, and rather than it putting him off it only made him want more fiercely to make him smile, to protect him.

He wasn't a schoolboy begging to be allowed to come along, he was a soldier in his own right. He knew Levi did respect his abilities. Looked at it that way, things seemed a lot less hopeless than they had in Shiganshina-by-the-Sea. But still fairly hopeless, he had to admit.

When the day of the party rolled around, Eren was both looking forward to it and dreading it. There weren't many presents, and there was more alcohol and a lot less food than there had been at the beach. Still, they'd done the best with what they had, and there was actual meat on the table when they sat down to eat.

Erwin got a standing ovation when he brought in a cake. It was a small thing, slightly damaged from being carried from the city via horseback, and a hushed silence fell when Eren cut it. Reverently, the pieces were distributed, and there wasn't a crumb left over.

Levi wasn't there. He'd put in an appearance at the beginning of the meal, and he wished Eren a happy birthday rather stiffly and took his plate back to his room. There was no way Eren was going to be able to get any cake back up to him, and Eren convinced himself that he didn't deserve any anyway.

Eren drank half a bottle of beer and then put it down. The food was gone, and everyone was staying up talking. Eren had said very firmly that he'd wanted a day off from talking about his dream, and thus the conversation had drifted onto other topics. He couldn't really follow it, however, he was working up his nerve.

He chose his moment. It was inevitable there would be an argument over something, and when voices were raised and people were laughing Eren abandoned his drink and slipped away.

Upstairs.

He took a deep breath, and lifted his hand and knocked on the door to Levi's office. He could see light coming from underneath it, so he hadn't gone to bed yet.

"Yes."

Levi didn't look entirely surprised to see him when he stepped inside. He was sitting on his couch, rather than at his desk, a sheaf of papers in his hand and a drink on the table next to him.

"What is it, Eren?"

Eren closed the door behind him and Levi's eyebrow twitched.

Eren rehearsed what he was going to say one last time.

"I have a request to make, for my birthday," he said. "I want you to listen when I tell you about my dream. Please, Sir."

"I thought you were tired of talking about it." Eren was going to argue when Levi held up his hand. He motioned Eren towards the couch and put his paperwork down on the table. "I'm listening, Eren."

Eren stared, startled for a few moments and then sat down the other end of the couch, his hands on his knees and his back straight. He hadn't actually thought about what he was going to say next.

Levi looked resigned, like he was steeling himself for something.

Well, he'd come this far, he had to keep going. Eren took a deep breath and started talking.

"When I was growing up by the sea, I had this dream that I would sail over the horizon on this ship, _The Wings of Freedom," _he began, slow and halting. By the time he got to the point where he described how Levi had flung him down the street, he was starting to relax. Levi himself looked slightly bemused.

"That's what you think I'm like?"

Eren glanced at him, "I wouldn't want to sneak up on you when you weren't expecting it, Sir."

Levi smiled faintly. "Good point."

Eren shifted, letting himself lean against the back of the couch. He kept talking.

Levi kept listening, as Eren had asked. He actually looked like he was becoming intrigued despite himself, asking the odd question, mostly about what the _Freedom_ was actually like. He finished his drink and offered Eren one as well when he poured another and after learning his lesson twice from Pixis, Eren drank it very slowly.

The castle grew quiet.

Eren tried to explain how sails worked, how the wind pushed the ships along the surface of the water, and how Levi had caught him when he'd missed his footing on the rope.

"I was hanging there by my arms. I was so sure I was going to die." He could smile about it now. He did smile. Levi watched him, his chin propped up on his hand, his elbow on the armrest.

Eren had never talked like this before. He didn't tell everything in strict order, he let the words flow, and he felt finally that he was letting them go. He lazed back against the couch, cradling his glass carefully in his hands. Levi would not be happy if he spilled it.

"You started talking about your old friends," Eren continued. His voice was wearing thin, he could hear it getting quieter, but there were no other sounds, and Levi was paying close attention. "You told me they were dead now, but that when you were younger-" He smiled, a bit sadly, "You said you were a pirate. Or rather, I did and you agreed. You said you'd done bad things."

He heard Levi inhale sharply and he broke off and looked at him. Levi's expression had changed, his eyes slightly wide with shock, and his mouth set in a grim line.

"Corporal Levi?"

Levi hesitated for a few moments before answering. "That wasn't a dream, Eren," Levi said softly. "That part was real. I didn't realise you were listening so closely. You didn't seem to listen to anyone else."

Eren frowned, going over Captain Levi's words again, pruning out the embellishments, the ships and the cannons and the faraway lands. His friends were still dead and he'd been a criminal. He stared at Levi, trying to reconcile this picture of Levi's past with his present.

"You talked to me a lot then?" Eren asked.

"Not at first. Continue, Eren, this is your story."

Even if nothing else came of this conversation, it had been worth it just to learn what Levi had shared with him.

Eren could feel his eyes drooping and he settled a bit more comfortably on the couch.

"Well, um, we finished painting the rest of the _Freedom, _and it just needed to dry."

He fell back into the narrative, reliving those last rushed, desperate days by the ocean. It might have been for the best that Eren was only partly paying attention to what he was saying, because the next thing he knew he was telling Levi what he'd done after he'd been told he couldn't join the crew. And there was no way he'd have found the courage to do so if he'd seen it coming.

"I kissed you. I couldn't think of anything else to do. I was so angry, and scared that you were going to leave and that you'd die out there, and I'd never see you again. I couldn't think of anything but how you were going to leave and that I loved you so much."

It was only after they'd left his mouth that he realised what he'd said, and that his words were gone and there was no way to pull them back. He jolted into wakefulness, staring at Levi's desk blankly, not game to turn his head. He was barely game to breathe. He lifted his glass with a shaky hand and finished the last of his drink and he barely even tasted it.

He fell silent.

Levi didn't say anything either. For one brief, hopeful moment Eren wondered if he'd fallen asleep. He glanced at him and flinched when Levi's eyes met his own.

"Um." He swallowed hard.

"Go on," Levi said in the same tone he'd been using since Eren had arrived. He seemed neither angry nor surprised.

"Well." Eren tried to relax again, and calm his racing heart. "You were really angry. I guess I can't blame you for that. I couldn't even fool myself that- okay, well you shoved me into a wall and said I hadn't answered your question."

It was easier to talk than to listen, sometimes, and he pushed on.

"And Armin looked really tired," Eren yawned. "He was sitting on his bag down by the docks. I don't know how he'd managed to get up earlier than us, but he always arrived first."

He vaguely noticed Levi gently lifting his empty glass out of his hands. That was okay, he didn't want any more. The story was nearly done anyway. Where was he again?

Eren woke up with sunlight on his face. He blinked, feeling warm and slightly fuzzy-headed and very cramped and uncomfortable. His legs were curled up and he couldn't straighten them for some reason. He slitted his eyes open and realised his blanket was green.

The top of his head was warm. His neck hurt. He wasn't alone. He could hear someone breathing, deep and even.

His eyes watering in the glare, Eren lifted his head. He was curled up on a couch, his boots on the ground next to him and a scouting legion cloak draped across him. This was Levi's office. Eren blinked himself awake as he remembered why he'd come here, but why was he still here the next morning? The top of his head met resistance when he tried to tilt his head back. It didn't feel like the other end of the couch.

His heart rate picked up markedly when he realised Levi was still sitting next to him and that the top of his head had been brushing the corporal's thigh. Levi's head was still resting on his hand, but his eyes were shut, and he breathed deeply. His lips were slightly parted. Eren held his breath as he sat up as quietly as he could. The sun was just over the horizon, and Levi's face was in shadow. Why had he let him stay here, rather than send him back downstairs?

Eren's neck ached when he looked right, and he winced as he slowly straightened his legs. This was a terrible couch for sleeping on, but Eren found himself smiling. Levi looked younger when he was sleeping; his semi-permanent, deeply unimpressed expression had softened into something more ambiguous. Eren could see fine lines around his eyes, and stubble starting to grow on his chin, dark against his pale skin. Eren bit his lip and stared, trying to drink it all in.

He couldn't stay here, and he took the cloak from around his shoulders and draped it carefully over Levi.

"Nice try," Levi murmured, his voice deepened and roughened with sleep. It sent a shiver up Eren's spine. He wondered if many other people had heard Levi speak in that tone. It didn't matter; he appreciated how lucky he was either way.

"Sorry," Eren said. Not really sorry.

Levi slitted open one eye and Eren realised he was still kneeling on the couch and staring far too closely at him.

He moved back, and uncoiled, putting his feet on the ground. "Um, thank you for letting me stay, Corporal."

Levi answered his unspoken question. "You fell asleep, practically mid-sentence. It was so late it didn't seem worth waking you up to send you downstairs."

"But I'm supposed to sleep in the basement," Eren said.

"We both know by now that it's an entirely pointless precaution. You're not going to transform in your sleep. Anyway, I was here too, so you were still technically under observation."

"Observing with your eyes shut," Eren said slyly, feeling happy and brave. He was still waiting for the other shoe to drop as he'd said far too much last night, but while they talked like this, sleepy and sun-drenched, about inconsequential things, he could pretend everything was fine. That he could wake up next to Levi every morning if he wanted to, which he did so very badly.

"Huh." Levi rubbed his face and pulled off the cloak. He covered his mouth with his hand when he yawned.

"Thank you," Eren said.

"Mm." Levi didn't seemed to have used up his quota of words for now. He wasn't very communicative first thing in the morning, and Eren was delighted to learn this. Everything he could learn was precious. It didn't look like they were going to have a heart-to-heart, however.

"I should head downstairs then," Eren said. To his disappointment, Levi agreed. He pulled his boots on and saw himself out. He glanced over his shoulder for one last look at Levi, still half-asleep, his elbows resting on his knees as he squinted into the sunlight.

The corridor was dark by comparison, and when he closed his eyes Eren could still see the after-image of Levi turning his face to the sun. He trailed one hand along the wall to steady himself, closing and opening his eyes until the splotches behind his eyelids faded.

The water in the showers was cold, but he was up before everyone else and he had the bathroom to himself. For the first time since he'd broken free of the crystal, his dream was not in the forefront of Eren's mind. He felt present and real like hadn't for a while.

Mostly because he was panicking. What had happened that morning was brilliant and wonderful, but the reality was that he'd pretty much confessed right out to Levi. He told him he'd loved him. Even if it had been in a dream, it was a dream Eren had constructed to comfort himself.

Levi hadn't really had a chance to respond but soon enough he would, Eren was sure. He'd marched up and made Levi listen to him; if nothing else that demanded a response.

He was now looking forward to Hange's experiments. He could sort of hide in titan form. At the very least, he wouldn't have to watch his facial expressions as carefully when Levi was around.

Going from his mostly-underground cell to the freezing showers in the morning tended to sour Eren for the day ahead but today he had to admit was shaping up to be quite pleasant. When he stepped outside with the others after breakfast, a brisk, sharp breeze ruffled their hair and nodded the daisies growing by the stables and made the horses keen to get started. Small fluffy clouds moved fast across the sky, torn apart and refolded by the wind.

Eren cleaned his gear and saddled his horse with thoroughness and determination. Until he was definitely rejected, he was going to do his absolute best to impress Levi. This was his life now, it had never stopped being his life if he was being honest, and he was going to make the most of it.

The testing went about as well as could be expected. It took Eren a few tries to actually transform, but the thought of Levi being disappointed in him was eventually motivation enough. Once he was in titan form, everything came back naturally to him, and Hange ran him through a list of exercises without any problems.

They stopped for lunch, sitting on the grass in a rough circle and eating sandwiches packed that morning. Mikasa asked Eren why he'd snuck away from his own birthday party, and he muttered something about being tired. He was _still_ tired. He didn't know how many hours sleep he'd gotten last night, but it can't have been too many. He kept having to stifle yawns, and he wondered if Levi was doing the same thing, but hiding it better. Eren was tempted to flop back into the grass, but he suspected if he lay down on such a nice, drowsy day, he'd fall asleep almost instantly.

He could hear the horses grazing nearby and the conversation around him was cheerful and light-hearted. This was much better than cleaning out the stables or going around the training course yet again, and the others were in a good mood. Eren himself was feeling pretty good about how the testing was going, but every time Levi crossed his field of vision his stomach would lurch uncomfortably. He looked around for Levi now, and saw him talking with Hange.

"All right, we're done for now," Levi said when he and Hange approached the group. "It looks like you're ready for active duty again, Eren."

"Thank you Sir," Eren said. Well, that was a bit of a relief, although he hadn't been all that worried to start with.

"Are we heading back, Corporal Levi?" Mikasa asked.

"We are," Levi said. "Since further testing was not on the schedule," he said with a glance at Hange. Eren knew they would have had to be persuaded of that fact. "Once you have cleaned your gear and settled your horses, the rest of the afternoon is yours."

That brought a few smiles, although there clearly wasn't time to go to town, and there were fairly limited leisure activities available in HQ. Mostly people sat around the mess and talked.

So they didn't head back in any great hurry. Levi seemed to be letting his horse decide his own pace, and the rest of the group followed his example. Eren didn't mind too much; it was a lovely day. Eren had spent most of his time after waking up within HQ, his world constrained by walls. It had made him all the more nostalgic for the open skies and seas of Shiganshina-by-the-Sea, but he realised that reality had its charms too. He'd just forgotten them. So he did his best to enjoy the fresh air and sunshine, and he rode with his head tilted back, looking at the clouds and odd bird crossing the sky.

When he looked back down again, his neck finally getting tired, he realised with a shock that Levi was riding beside him. He felt self-concious being caught staring at the sky like a little kid, but Levi wasn't looking at him.

The others were gradually drawing ahead, Eren noticed. He was glad he was on a horse, because his legs felt weak. Here it comes, he thought. The only thing he could do was try and handle it maturely, like an adult. At least until he could find somewhere to hide, later.


	11. Chapter 11

Eren wasn't sure if Levi was waiting for him to speak or biding his time, but eventually the silence between them grew unbearable, and he had to say something. Levi himself seemed to be lost in thought, and Eren knew trying to tell what he was thinking was a waste of time. If he wanted to talk he would, and if he didn't he'd make that perfectly clear.

"Thank you for coming down and talking to me, Corporal Levi. If you hadn't, I might never have woken up."

Levi sighed, "I should have done it earlier, perhaps, but I had no reason to think you'd hear me."

"Earlier?" Eren asked.

"I avoided talking to you for a couple of months," Levi said quietly. "I thought it was a waste of time, than you were as good as dead."

"Oh." Eren felt slightly hurt. Levi wasn't looking at him, he was watching the way ahead. "What changed your mind?"

"Nothing changed my mind. I couldn't accept that you were really gone; I was just fooling myself that I could. Once I faced up to that and started talking I couldn't stop."

"Like it was for me last night," Eren said. They had to talk about it, and he wouldn't run away.

"Perhaps." Levi didn't continue that line of conversation, however.

"Corporal, why didn't you want to hear about my dream?" Eren asked, when their horses were once again wading through long grass.

Levi glanced at him. "Because I knew what you were going to say," he replied. "An unasked question does not require an answer, that's all."

"You knew?" About what?

"I could see it in your eyes. You're not subtle, Eren."

Oh. _That_.

"I didn't actually intend to tell you all of that," Eren muttered.

"No, I suppose not. But you did, and here we are." Levi frowned. "Eren, it was all a dream. A deeply-felt one certainly but-"

"Except for the parts that weren't," Eren pointed out. "The parts where you told me about your life, and when you trained me. But that's not the point; I don't _want_ it to be real, because in the end you left."

"I rejected you if I recall."

"That too." Eren hung his head. "Although I kind of deserved it for acting like I did." He still felt embarrassed thinking about it.

"And then you all but committed suicide going after me." Levi continued. He heard Levi sigh and Eren looked up to see Levi regarding him with a bleak expression. "How on earth am I supposed to react to that, Eren?"

"I didn't intend to drown, you know."

"I know, you were just being your usual self and attempting the impossible." He smiled faintly, "And as usual you succeeded, after a fashion."

"You did the impossible as well," Eren pointed out. "You woke me up."

"Hmm." Levi looked at him for one long moment, and Eren stared back. Levi's gaze could have such weight to it sometimes, and he wasn't game to look away. So Levi did, eventually. He kicked his heels in and caught up with the others, and Eren was obliged to follow.

Eren wasn't stupid. He knew Levi could have politely but firmly rejected him by now. He knew Levi _should_ have done so by now. The fact that he hadn't was both thrilling and mildly terrifying. While Eren endlessly chased, and while Levi stayed out of reach, their roles were clear and defined.

Once they were over the horizon, who knew?

But he wasn't going to turn back now.

When they arrived back at HQ Eren cleaned his gear with the others, but decided to stay in the stables for a while. Armin had been looking after his horse and after six months away the gelding had all but forgotten him, and had been skittish and reluctant when they'd ridden out that morning. It was nothing Eren couldn't handle inside the walls, but they'd need a better working relationship before the next expedition.

So as the shadows crept across the courtyard, Eren stayed and brushed his horse, enjoying the peace and warmth of the stables, the soft sounds of the animals shifting in their stalls, and the vegetarian scent of them.

"Did you forget the sound of my voice?" he asked his horse, sweeping the brush down the animal's flank in long, firm strokes, and watching the loose hairs float to the floor in the afternoon sun that slanted through the open windows at the back of the stables. "That's okay. You'll get used to it. I'm not sure what to talk to you about though. There weren't any horses in Shiganshina-by-the-sea." One of Armin's books had mentioned something called 'sea-horses' but they'd all agreed that such a thing was too unlikely, and that it was probably a myth.

He yawned. He hadn't got a lot of sleep last night, and the sleep he had got had been cramped and uncomfortable. Worth it, of course, but he was still tired. He rested his forehead against the horse's neck. The animal was relaxed and tired, and didn't mind. Eren ceased brushing it and wrapped his arms around the creature's neck. It was warm and the hair was a bit itchy, but he could hear the horse's heart beating and it was soothing.

"I'm scared I'm going to screw up," he told his horse, in a voice barely above a whisper.

"You're not the only one," Levi said. Eren jumped and pulled away from his horse guiltily, and the animal flicked its ears at the sudden movement. He hadn't heard Levi come in, and it was as if he'd just appeared next to him.

"Um, I was just-"

"There's no need to be self-concious about talking to animals, Eren," Levi said, reaching over and patting the horse on the neck. "They make better conversationalists that humans."

Now that he'd gotten over his shock, Eren remembered what Levi had actually said.

"You're scared of screwing up too, Sir?"

"What sort of man do you think I am?" Levi asked sharply. "You're not to be taken lightly, Eren," he added more gently.

Eren thought about this for a few moments and felt blood start to rush to his face, which was at least preferable to-

"What?" Levi raised an eyebrow. Then he got it. "Oh for fuck's sake," he muttered. But he was smiling. Really smiling. He wasn't actually looking at Eren, he was still looking at the horse, but Eren could see the corner of his mouth quirked up, and it was almost a _smirk. _

It was very hard to breathe. Eren felt like he'd lost control of his own expression, and if he grinned any wider he'd strain a muscle in his face. This was actually happening. They were strolling along the precipice.

"This is a mess," Levi said. He turned to face him, looking serious again, and Eren tossed the brush in the general direction of the other tools as surreptitiously as possible as he prepared himself to pay attention and met Levi's eyes. Levi didn't even chip him for his carelessness. "I can't give up on you and you won't let me go. What do you suggest we do now?"

It seemed to be a genuine question, but Eren wondered what sort of answer Levi was waiting for.

"Date?" Eren suggested hopefully. It was what he wanted to do, after all.

"I don't think either of us have the spare time for that," Levi said. That smile was back.

Eren didn't know who moved first. He didn't even think about it; he stepped off the precipice and Levi was there to catch him. They practically collided, stepping into each other's arms like they'd rehearsed it. Maybe they had. Eren had. Whenever he was alone he lived in those arms.

He caught a glimpse of Levi's eyes as he closed his own and angled his head down, and then Levi's mouth was tilted up to meet his. Despite the urgency with which they'd reached for each other, the kiss at the end of it was careful, sweet, barely more than sharing breath and brushing lips. Eren felt like his heart was trying to escape right through his ribcage.

"This isn't going to be easy," Levi murmured against his lips, and Eren opened his eyes. He didn't pull back and Levi's face was too close to focus on.

"I've given it a lot of thought," Eren said. "Levi," he added, because he wanted to try his name out in his mouth without embellishments, without rank. It felt a little wrong, if he was honest, but Levi looked oddly pleased.

"I suppose you have," he said.

Eren felt Levi slide his fingers through his hair, cupping the back of his head. And then he pulled him down for another kiss. This time his lips were parted invitingly. Eren had caught glimpses of other couples in the past – fuck, were they a couple? Just thinking of the word made him dizzy – and he copied what he'd thought he'd seen, pretending he wasn't uncertain. Levi didn't seem to mind, he settled into the embrace, and Eren shivered as he bit gently at his lips, like he was biting into something delicate and sweet. It wrung a little noise from Eren's throat.

He didn't realise their centre of gravity was shifting until he was forced to stumble or fall over, and a rake leaning against the wall slid to the floor as they stumbled against the side of the stables. Eren could feel the rough wooden boards against his back, in a vague sort of way. Mostly he could feel Levi leaning against him, their bodies pressed together head to hip. He was glad the wall could take some of his weight; his legs seemed to have lost interest.

Levi kept one hand on the back of Eren's head but the other wandered, and Eren did the same, his fingers skimming over a body he'd only imagined up until now. Levi felt like a coiled spring; all muscle, and Eren wished there weren't so many clothes in the way.

Levi made no move to start taking them off, however, intent on stealing Eren's breath, which was coming in irregular gasps that he snatched from around Levi's mouth.

He couldn't think of anything much; his mind was blank, overloaded with sensation and flooded with adrenaline and hormones and if he stopped to think about it he'd probably choke, forget to breathe or something equally ridiculous.

They stopped eventually. They had to. But it took them several goes. Levi would pull his head back and Eren would chase him, press another kiss to his mouth and Levi would relent and kiss him back and they'd reignite. Eventually Levi held him at arms length, pulling himself away with a regretful sigh.

Eren could see Levi's chest heaving, his hair falling across wide, dark eyes, and his lips gleaming with spit. Eren stared at his commander and realised, slightly awestruck, that he'd done this. He had this power, somewhere within himself that had nothing to do with titans or fighting or anything like that, that was all him.

He wondered what he looked like in Levi's eyes.

Like a meal, maybe. He looked hungry.

"This is." Even his voice sounded ragged and torn. "It's not a good idea to do this here." It wasn't likely that anyone would come here, but it was possible. There were no closed doors, no locks. Eren forced himself to care, nodding and licking his lips.

Levi's gaze raked him up and down, and Eren resisted the urge to cover his crotch with his hands. Levi had to already know what state he was in, one he was entirely responsible for.

"You can't really go out like that," Levi said.

"No. I'll take care of it." He'd either spend ten minutes calming himself down, or he'd risk what was probably going to be closer to ten seconds and get himself off. He'd spent most of his adolescence crammed in into bunkhouses and dorms and communal bathrooms, and he'd jerked off in riskier places.

"Is that what you want?" Levi was looking him in the eye.

Eren's mouth went dry. "Is," he faltered. "Is there another option?"

Levi's gaze slid sideways as he took in the rest of the stables. "It's filthy here," he muttered. He had his hands on Eren's upper arms, and Eren could feel the pressure on them start to lift as he pulled away.

"Wait!" He grabbed the lapels of Levi's jacket. "Stay. Please?"

"Stay and do what, Eren?" Levi asked, gently.

"Well, um." This was too embarrassing. Wasn't it obvious?

"I don't want you to beg, I want you to ask," Levi said. "It's all right, Eren."

Eren was going to let him go, pick this up a safer time, and then he looked down. Levi was hard too. Eren could see the way his trousers were stretched tight in a way they weren't designed to be and Eren didn't think, he acted. He surged forward up off the wall and pulled Levi against him. Eren shouldn't have been surprised but he was; Levi was unassailable, untouchable, except that now he wasn't, he wanted like any other man. He wanted Eren.

"Please, please, please touch me," Eren muttered against Levi's mouth.

Levi turned his head away and Eren ended up pressing his mouth against his cheek.

"Huh?"

Levi glanced at him with a funny little smile; he'd been surveying the stables. "Over here," Levi said, and pulled him deeper into the stables. Eren didn't want to let go of Levi, and Levi didn't seem to mind this, and they ended up stumbling towards where the feed was kept in separate area from the horses, their arms still wrapped around each other. Once Eren worked out where they were going he tried to fling himself back into the pile of clean hay and Levi wasn't quite so enthusiastic, and he ended up tripping over Levi's feet and they both overbalanced. Levi's body on his nearly knocked the breath out of him when they landed in a tangle of limbs, and not just because of his weight.

Eren tensed up, expecting Levi to be less than impressed with this clowning around. The hay rustled as they shifted slightly deeper into it, and Eren could see motes of dust floating in the sunlit air above his head.

Levi sneezed, turning his head away politely to do so.

"Disgusting." But he was smiling, and his eyes and a strange light in them. He put his hands on Eren's shoulders and hauled himself up so they were eye to eye. Eren could feel their harnesses catch on each other briefly. And then Levi bent his head down and kissed him and Eren wrapped his arms around his shoulders. It seemed a natural progression to fling a leg over Levi's hip.

It was sort of awkward, especially with his boots and harness still on but when he did so Levi ground his hips forward and Eren gasped because holy crap he thought he saw stars. He wanted more of that, please and thank you, and he arched himself up against Levi's body. His self-conciousness melted away in the heat of overwhelming lust, and his hands scrabbled uselessly at Levi's harness, just sort of aimlessly tugging on the leather straps, as if they'd fall away on their own if he just wanted them to badly enough.

"Worry about your own," Levi muttered, and moved on from his mouth, down his jawline, and maybe he thought he was giving Eren a chance to breathe, but it wasn't really working out like that. Levi shifted his weight slightly, and Eren reached between them, to start undoing his belt and the buttons on his fly and fuck he hoped this was what Levi meant. And maybe not so accidentally he took the opportunity brush the back of his hands and his knuckles against Levi's crotch. If Levi noticed he didn't comment on it, but Eren wasn't quite game to turn his hand over and touch him properly.

Eren clenched his teeth around a whine as Levi sucked on a spot just below his ear.

Eren moved his hands, sliding them up along Levi's sides, up under his jacket, and Levi lifted his head and looked down at him.

There was a stripe of sunlight falling across his cheek, and Eren reached up and traced it. When his finger caught on the edge of Levi's mouth he felt him smile.

"Changed your mind?" he asked.

"Nope," Eren grinned, still breathless.

"Good." Such a simple word, one he'd heard thousands of times, but he'd never heard it said quite like that, quietly but carefully and firmly. It was the tone of voice in which vows were spoken.

Levi turned his head and caught Eren's finger between his teeth, carefully, and then changed his mind and let it go again, frowning.

"Your hands smell like horse," he said.

"I'm sorry." Levi's hand was making its way down his chest, and over his hip. "Next time I'll scrub." He parted his lips as Levi leaned down again. "Everything."

They kissed, and Eren thought they were starting to get really good at it. He lifted his hips as Levi untucked his shirt and pushed it up, his hand gliding over Eren's stomach. He held it there for a few moments, and Eren wondered if he could feel his heart beating.

He held his breath when he felt Levi move his hand down. He didn't take his time; he wasn't teasing, but when his fingertips brushed Eren's cock, Eren felt like he'd been waiting a million years for it.

Levi was worrying at his bottom lip, doing that thing he did where he was ostensibly letting Eren breathe but then making it impossible to do so. At least in any sensible sort of fashion. He wrapped his hand around Eren's cock and Eren gasped loudly. Fuck, he hadn't meant to do that. They were supposed to be quiet. But Levi was touching him, stroking him just like he'd imagined but this was real and Levi's eyes were open, he realised, drinking in his expression.

He didn't know what to do with his hands and he settled for grabbing handfuls of Levi's shirt. He bit his lip, determined not to make any more noise, breathing hard through his nose. His hips juddered up against Levi's hand and -oh _shit _this was too fast and he couldn't stop and he gritted his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut, trying to fight back his orgasm which seemed to arrive from fucking nowhere and it was a losing battle because Levi was overwhelming all five of his senses and he couldn't bear to ask him to stop.

The best he could hope for was to not make any noise and he failed at that in the end, flinging his head back with a loud gasp as he came in Levi's hand. He hung there for a few moments, his body tensed like bowstring, and then he relaxed with a sigh.

"Not bad," Levi murmured.

Eren groaned and hid his face in his hands. That had been like thirty seconds. He was sure if he was any more embarrassed the hay would catch fire.

"I'm sorry," he mumbled through his fingers. He felt Levi ease his hand out of his pants, and his cock twitched. He could smell himself.

"Don't be," Levi said. "But we can't stay here, we have to head back."

Eren lowered his hands. "But what about you?" he asked.

"I can wait," Levi said. "Besides." He pulled a piece of straw out of his hair, "I need a bath first and so do you." He didn't draw attention to Eren's embarrassment, and Eren was grateful.

Levi handed Eren his handkerchief first and knelt in the hay while Eren sat up and used it, his other hand still gleaming with Eren's come and Eren found himself biting his lip trying not to laugh. He felt light-headed and buzzing and not so self-conscious any more.

When they finally got to their feet, Levi spent a few moments plucking bits of hay from Eren's hair and clothing, and Eren was tempted to throw himself back into it just so Levi wouldn't stop. He never thought he'd want to be fussed over by someone, but when it was Levi looking at him and running his fingers over his hair, he felt he'd be happy to stand there for hours. He didn't want to leave Levi's company.

Levi left, but before he did so he pressed a kiss to Eren's mouth. A swift one, so they wouldn't get tangled again. Eren found himself fighting the urge to wave him goodbye at the door.

That evening he felt like he was floating. He concentrated on everything; this was a momentous day and he didn't want to miss a second of it. He didn't understand how no one else noticed the world had changed, even though he was careful not to act any differently than usual. Levi didn't let his gaze linger either.

That night Eren snuck into the bathroom and scrubbed himself as fast and quietly as he could. As unlikely as it was, he half expected someone to find him and somehow know that he was hoping Corporal Levi would walk down to his room and take his clothes off. No one did.

Eren went to bed and tossed and turned and alternated between vowing to stay awake and trying to get to sleep.

Levi hadn't actually said he was going to visit him. Maybe Levi was waiting for him to visit- no, surely he wouldn't want to risk him getting caught after curfew. Eren wrestled with these and similar conundrums for a long time.

"Fuck it!" He sat up in bed and thumped his hands into the covers. He wasn't going to get any sleep like this. He threw the covers off and stood up before he could change his mind. He'd never broken curfew before, which, when he remembered how often he snuck out at night in Shiganshina-by-the-Sea was rather surprising.

His eyes had grown used to the dark, but he still kept one hand on the wall as he made his way upstairs. He nearly turned around and went back a couple of times; he couldn't imagine Levi being happy with him for doing this.

He hurried along a darkened corridor; he'd memorised the layout of HQ by now, or most of it, and he was fairly confident he knew where he was going even in the dark-

He rounded a corner and nearly walked into someone. Levi looked just as startled as he felt.

"What are you doing here?" Levi hissed at him.

Eren didn't answer immediately. In the faint light that was filtering in through the windows, he could see that Levi wasn't in uniform. He was wearing a loose shirt and pants and Eren realised this was what he slept in and that was a wonderful thing to learn.

"I was um, going to visit you," Eren said, hanging his head for a moment. Then he looked up, "Wait, what are you doing here?"

"Well." Levi actually looked a bit shifty. "I was wondering if you were still awake."

"Oh."

They stood in silence for a few moments.

"Do you want to come back to my room?" Eren asked.

"Yeah." He glanced at Eren, "As long as it's clean."

Eren honestly couldn't remember if it was clean or not. He and Levi walked side by side, silently and swiftly, keeping their hands to themselves. His heart had started thumping again.

This time, he was determined to do something for Levi. It was only fair, and he wanted to prove himself a worthy lover. He rehearsed what he was going to say in his head, and when they arrived back in his cell and shut the door, he took a deep breath.

"Levi, I want to suck your dick."

Okay that had sounded more seductive in his head. It came out like he was asking permission to go to the bathroom. It successfully confused Levi for a few moments at least. It was pretty dark but Eren was sure he could feel Levi staring at him.

"How straightforward of you," he said eventually. His voice was deep and amused, and something else that made Eren bite his lip. He heard Levi move and then a clunk and the lantern flared to life.

Eren stood with his back to the door and watched as Levi pulled his shirt off over his head. He really was stunning; everything Eren had expected and more, solid and muscled, the indentations of the 3d harness branded across his skin. He took a deep breath, folding his shirt before placing it over the back of a chair.

"You ever sucked cock before?" he asked, looking at Eren over his shoulder.

"Of course not," Eren said. Surely that was obvious.

"Ever had yours sucked?"

"No." Should he have?

"Sit down and let me show you."

Oh fuck yes please. Eren took a step forward, "But I want to do something for you, so." It didn't seem fair that Levi should have to wait even longer.

Levi looked at him for a few moments and Eren held his ground. Levi relented, smiled and held out his hand. "You do whatever you want." Eren closed the gap between them and kissed him. Something they could agree on. He raised his arms when he felt Levi lifting his shirt and they had to break the kiss long enough for Levi to pull it off over his head. Eren wrapped his arms around Levi's shoulders and kissed down his neck while he waited for Levi to finish folding it and placing it over his own. Eren was halfway hard and he jolted all the way there almost instantly when he realised Levi was too. He was wearing cotton pants tied with a drawstring and they did nothing to hide it the way his uniform did.

He looked bigger than Eren had expected.

Eren sat on the edge of his bed, and ran his fingers over Levi's stomach. He was nervous and horny and he'd been like that for most of the afternoon, but both emotions were now in overdrive. He ran his thumb down the line of hair from Levi's naval, and then leaned in to kiss the dip just above his left hip. He smelled amazing, clean and somehow strange – aroused, Eren realised. He swallowed, his mouth full of spit.

"Right." He looked up when he felt Levi's hands in his hair. He was looking down at him with a strangely sad look. "What's wrong?" he asked.

"Don't look so worried, Eren. You're not obligated to do anything."

"I know!" He felt frustrated with himself, he didn't want Levi to feel sorry for him. He didn't feel sorry for himself; he felt like the luckiest idiot in the whole world, to have Humanity's Strongest Soldier standing in front of him with a cock that could split granite and affection sparking in his gaze.

He just didn't know how to start, exactly.

Levi's hands moved from his hair to cup his chin and tilt his head up. His fingers were cool and calloused.

"Let me," he said gently. "You don't understand, Eren, how much I want to taste you. How much I want you to experience for the first time. I can't make you happy. I don't have a sailing ship, and we know all that's at the horizon is a wall. But for a little while, I want to try and make you forget all of that if I can."

"Oh." Holy crap. Eren didn't know how to respond to that.

"Please say something else, Eren," Levi muttered, looking away. "This sort of thing isn't really my strong suit."

"I don't know what to say," Eren said honestly. So he reached up and pulled Levi down into a kiss and wrapped his arms around him. Levi lowered himself onto his knees between Eren's legs, and they bit and licked at each other, grazing teeth across jawlines and tugging at each other's hair. Levi was wrong, Eren decided, because right now he made him so fucking happy it hurt.

"Do it," Eren breathed between kisses. "Please."

"Mm." Levi started moving down, leaving hot, wet bites down Eren's chest, that immediately grew cold when he moved on. He tugged at the waistband of Eren's shorts and Eren lifted his hips; he'd done this part before, and he wasn't so shy this time. He still couldn't quite believe Levi was going to kneel in front of him and suck on his cock.

Couldn't quite believe it until it happened. He practically jumped when he felt Levi's lips press around the head of his cock. He held his breath, his mouth hanging open as he watched, and felt -oh god he felt and he tried not to squirm- him carefully slided his foreskin back with his tongue. Levi stopped and raised his head a litte.

"I'm not exactly an expert myself," he said. "So stop me if you need to."

"Okay." Maybe if a titan attacked, or HQ caught fire he'd ask him to stop. Maybe.

He watched Levi take a breath and then he took Eren's cock in his mouth, lowering his head over it until Eren felt the tip butt up against the back of Levi's mouth.

"Ohh." His jaw dropped. He got it now. Fantasies could only take him so far, and reality was nothing like he'd imagined, less comfortable, hotter, harder, and unbelievably better. Levi held himself there for a moment, and Eren could feel his tongue move against the underside of his cock as he swallowed around him. He wrapped one arm around Eren's waist to hold him steady and the other around the base of his cock for the exact same reason. Eren could hear Levi breathing hard through his nose; he wasn't lying, he realised, he really did want to do this, he was enjoying himself.

Eren wanted to kiss him and shower him with grateful affection, but then Levi started bobbing his head up and down and then Eren wanted nothing more than to thrust up into his mouth. He rested his hands on Levi's muscular shoulders, flexing his fingers.

He was so very glad Levi had got him off earlier, because if he hadn't he was sure this would have ended all too soon. He ended up bracing himself with one arm and leaning back to better watch his own cock slide in and out from between Levi's lips, and to watch his cheeks hollow when he sucked on the end. Occasionally he'd glance up and Eren would catch a glimpse of his eyes, but mostly he kept them shut, concentrating.

Eventually Eren had to close his eyes too. He let his head loll back and gave up trying to keep the soft sounds from passing his lips. No one could hear him but Levi, and by the way he held him more tightly and sucked him harder when he made them, Eren got the impression Levi liked them a lot.

Nothing lasted forever. Eren scratched lightly at Levi's shoulder, feeling the familiar heat pooling in his belly starting to uncoil towards the inevitable end.

"Levi, I'm gonna come-" he managed to get out.

"Mmmm hmmm." Levi _hummed_ an acknowledgement, his pace never changing and Eren could feel the vibration all the way along his cock and through his balls and he dug his fingernails into the blankets and Levi's shoulder and he gritted his teeth, his toes curling against the stone floor.

"Shit, shit- _Levi!_" He opened his eyes in time to see Levi's cheek fill and he watched as he kept sucking squeezing his eyes shut and frowning as he forced himself to swallow. It was too much and Eren whined and patted Levi's head and winced as Levi dropped his jaw and carefully released him.

Levi's eyes were glazed and his lips swollen and shiny with spit and he shifted his jaw like it hurt. Eren wondered what it had tasted like; even though he was smiling now, that funny little smirk of his that Eren realised was just for him, he hadn't looked all that happy to swallow it.

He was going to find out. Because one thing Levi's demonstration had taught him was that having someone sucking on your dick was absolutely mind blowing and if he could make Levi feel half as good as he did he could probably die happy.

"My turn," he gasped, before he could lose his nerve. He tugged at Levi's arms, pulling him up and Levi obliged, getting to his feet and stretching his legs. Eren kissed him, sloppy and careless; Levi's mouth soft and pliable against his. He could taste himself faintly.

"Where," Levi muttered, as Eren undid the drawstring on his pants, and hauled them down off his hips, Levi's cock nearly smacking Eren in the face as he did so. Levi let himself be manhandled and Eren pushed him down onto the bed, kissing him with all the fierceness he could muster on his stomach and hips and thighs. That was so good, he was so grateful, he was going to pay him back he swore.

Eren knelt over Levi's hips and surveyed him, finally naked and on his bed. His cock was flushed a deep red. Handsome, Eren thought, and twitching with suppressed power. He stretched out his hand and touched it, cradling it gently in his fingers, while Levi rested a forearm on his forehead and watched with dark and hooded eyes.

"You don't have to-" he began.

Eren snapped his head up, "I will!"

He shuffled further down Levi's body, feeling his knees against his legs, and with his feet hanging over the edge of the bed. He looked up at Levi one last time before he opened his mouth and cautiously licked the end of Levi's cock. He felt it jump in his hand. Tasted salty. He didn't know what he'd expected. He held Levi still with one hand and lowered his head down. When he took Levi into his mouth Levi made a kind of sighing sound that wrung a last, exhausted twitch from Eren's own cock. He wanted to hear that again, yes please.

He opened his mouth wider, careful of snagging his teeth, and tried to press Levi's cock to the back of his mouth, but he started to gag. He ended up with Levi's cock wedged in back of his cheek instead, taking as much as he could. Levi didn't seem to mind the compromise. When Eren looked up his lips were parted and his eyes were almost closed, his hand twitching slightly against the wrinkled sheet.

He was so beautiful. Eren bent his head to the task at hand, learning to read the way his leg muscles tensed under his hand, and his heart jumped when he wrung another one of those desperate sighs out of Levi's mouth. His heart was pounding.

He overstepped the mark once.

"Careful," Levi said, as one of Eren's teeth snagged his foreskin. Eren winced and licked it and sucked in apology. The whole thing was more work than it looked. His neck was on a strange angle and his jaw started to ache fairly quickly being at such an extreme angle he wasn't used to.

But he wouldn't have stopped for worlds. Levi was practically vibrating with the effort of keeping still underneath him, and when Eren held his breath he could hear Levi's own harsh breathing, the way it stopped and started. He tasted more salt.

"Eren," Levi gasped. "I'm nearly there."

Eren already knew. He could tell, he realised. "I 'oe," he said, or tried to.

He redoubled his efforts and was rewarded when Levi mangled his name beautifully one more time and practically threw Eren off as he drove his hips upwards and filled Eren's mouth with hot, bitter-sweet seed. Eren's throat rebelled and he stifled a cough as he realised Levi wasn't quite done and he forced himself to swallow, hard enough that tears came to his eyes. He still missed some. He could feel it trickle out of the corner of his mouth and down his chin.

He couldn't decide if it was disgusting or not. He lifted his head away and finally, mercifully, could close his jaw again, wiping his chin with the back of his hand.

Levi smiled at him, a wide, sated grin that Eren instantly fell in love with. "Sorry," he said, reaching down and ruffling his hair.

"No no no." He crawled up along Levi's body and wrapped himself around him, arms and legs both, burying his face in the crook of Levi's neck and trying to work the taste of his come out of his mouth. "Worth it. It was good." He felt utterly proud of himself.

Levi held him, and they lay there waiting to catch their breath.

"I can't stay the night," Levi said eventually.

Eren knew that. "Can you stay a little while? Until I sleep? Please?" He realised that his eyes did things to Levi, because he could see his objections fading when he gazed at him.

"I suppose," he said, and pulled Eren's head down to press a kiss to his forehead. "Put your pants on first."


	12. Epilogue

The sun was shining. Eren opened his eyes and realised he was lying on the deck, the wooden boards hard under his back. A shadow fell across his face and he looked up to see Captain Levi extend a hand to him. Eren accepted it and Levi pulled him easily to his feet.

The ocean was flat and calm as far as the eye could see in all directions, a featureless expanse of blue. The rigging above them was vague and undefined; Eren couldn't remember how it worked. There was no one else about, and it was very quiet.

"Where is everyone, Captain?" he asked, and realised that he knew.

"Most of them are dead," Levi said.

"Yeah." He remembered now.

He knew this was a dream, with the clarity of knowledge that dreams sometimes impart, but it didn't seem relevant. They walked to the prow of the ship and looked out over the ocean.

"I made it," Eren said.

"You did."

They stood in silence for a while.

"Thank you, Captain," he said eventually. That was why he was there, after all.

"You're welcome, Eren."

There was just one more thing.

"I love you, Captain."

Levi turned to him and tilted his head up and smiled and the sunlight was dazzling. Eren was sure he could smell the ocean.

He woke up blinking away tears. It was still dark. Levi had said he was going to leave once Eren had fallen asleep, but Eren could hear him breathing as he slept on at his side. The bed was far too small for this, and Levi had crammed himself up against the wall, his back to Eren. Eren was curled up in a ball and he cautiously stretched out a bit and edged forward to press his ear to Levi's back. He could feel his heartbeat.

He froze as Levi sighed and shifted, and Eren made space as he rolled over and draped an arm over Eren's shoulder. Eren smiled, and felt himself start to fall back into slumber, curling in close.

I love you as well, he mouthed silently, just practising for now.


End file.
